Thursday, April 19, 2007

She's done

I finished "her" this morning.
(Now the photos could be better, but it was a bit of a fight keeping the cats away)

There is nothing quite like canceled classes and unexpected time off.

I am not quite sure if the Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed was the perfect choice.
To me it is very close to perfect, even if the wool/silk/cotton/viscose blend probably lacks some of the firmness of the 100% cotton.
And the colours reminded me of the photos of the first Elfin in the forest setting.

And I love it.
And I love the softness of it (and so do the cats).


Towards the end I realized that I have done the sl2-k1-psso's wrong. I have carefully slipped one stitch, then a second stitch, knit one, then passed one stitch and a second stitch - and this doesn't give that clean line of the right way. Instead it gives a slightly leafy look, which I am quite fond of, in particular in this yarn.
But with my next, white cotton Elfin, I will do it the right way.
I will.

And I may have been a bit too eager and careful with my wrapped stitches and so I do not have that clear line marking the front and back panels.
But I really do like it like this.
Maybe I should not have knitted the wraps as well?

And ..... once I got to the neckline it was a bit unclear to me where to end the short rows to start with. At this point I had the Center front and the Neck foundation row.
The pattern says k to and including wrapped stitch from prev row. And I had no wrapped stitches from previous row. And I could not quite see that I should have a wrapped stitch from the previous row, and looking at the progress photos didn't make me any wiser, so I just decided that the first wrapped stitch would be the last stitch of the Center front.
And it works, and it fits like a dream.
But I'm not sure if it's right.

I had not quite understood the point of putting the last five stitches of the Lower fronts on hold for grafting rather than just binding them off - until they were actually grafted.

And while spending a good half hour weaving in ends and checking everything I realized that I had never done grafting before, or mattress stitch, or a picot edge, or increased in lace (which is done so brilliantly, and works so wonderfully, I just wonder why it's not done more).
I had met short rows before, but not to this extent.
So most of it is my "first meeting".

And now she's actually done.
And she's the first sweaterly thing I've started AND finished.
And now I can properly concentrate on those exam papers without "her" distracting me.
And I like to think of "her" as my good exam luck charm in all her green, soft, comfortable and rather complicated knittedness.
Unfortunately I've banned myself from starting my white Elfin until post-exams.
(So I may work a bit on the City Coat)

2 comments:

Amanda said...

How lovely! I'd love to see pics of it on you. I'm seriously beginning to consider knitting this at some point (but probably not anytime soon, since I am both poor and have a lot of projects already planned).

Anonymous said...

Wow...a whole lot of firsts in the knitting of that sweater. It's gorgeous - congratulations!