the wildly popular Owls sweater by Kate Davies. I actually finished an entire sweater in 17 days! Splee! It's not near perfect, the yarn's a bit busy, it makes me look a bit like a linebacker and, apparently, I'm not nearly as short as I think I am.
And. I. LOVE it!!
I wanted to make it with some Malabrigo Worsted I bought last year off someone's Rav destash. It's the Charrua colorway which is pretty busy for a sweater but I had an idea to tone it down a bit. I also used this great equation from Ann Budd for the Knitting Math needed to convert the sweater gauge from Bulky to Worsted.
I like the look of a busy yarn edged with a solid color so I got a skein (or two) of Malabrigo Worsted in Thistle color (which, I was assured, was the blue used in Charrua and my sources were correct!).
I cast on with the Thistle, did one row, switched to Charrua; did this for the body and the sleeves. I also learned that if a sweater has long sleeves, I like to do them first and get them out of the way. I did that with this sweater and it made sweater knitting much better for me! I did the sleeves two-at-a-time Magic Loop. I also planned on using the Thistle for the owls section and the BO's and I love how it came out.
I took measurements of my arms and the length that I wanted the sweater but everything came up about 3" short!
Anyway, here it is....
Here's a close-up of the Owls. You can also see where my short rows went horribly wrong...
There's 30 owls! In the original pattern, you're supposed to put buttons on the owls "eyes". I don't think I will. I'm going to put eyes on one or two in the front, right owls (brooch-like). I think if someone has sixty buttons on one piece of clothing they should be teaching preschool or something.
In any case, I'm going to do some serious frogging with this sweater. The waist shaping is in the exact right spot so I'm going to cut off the lower ribbing, add 3" to the body, do the ribbing, BO with Thistle. I was going to do the same with the sleeves but I really need to go back and fix those crazy short-rows. Also, I did gauge adjustment for everything except the underarm grafting bit so the underarms are right up in my armpits and it's a bit uncomfortable and I know that with wearing, it'll felt there and I don't want that! So I'm going to rip all the way down to the yoke and separate the sleeves again, then I'm going to add 3 or 4" to the sleeve length and redo the whole yoke bit. Eep! Not sure when this will happen, maybe this summer.
Now for Dave's sweater...
Back shot...
The flash makes it look lighter then it actually is. It's a lovely deep charcoal color with dark red stripes. It's a sweater from Debbie Stoller's Son of a Bitch book (the actual name of the sweater escapes me at the moment). It's a really easy knit but mind-numbingly boring stockinette in the round FOREVER!
The yarn is a dream! It's Alpaca With a Twist's Baby Alpaca Jumbo Hank. Soooooo soft. Felts instantly so I've already instructed Dave many times to let me take care of washing it. Took me forever to finish it because I'd get bored and throw it in the corner for a few months at a time. I gave it strict instructions to think on it's boringness and become more interesting but it never listened. Stupid sweater.
Two FO's and now I'm at a loss as to what to knit next. That's a first for me! Lots of ideas, just getting a bunch of small stuff out of the way first.
Sweaters ahoy, Ruth!
1 comment:
WOW two sweaters in one post! That's crazy great. I wish I made sweaters for myself that fit the way Dave's fits him. Stupid boring knitting.
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