30-12-2017

I’m making this sweater again - but this time in fingering-weight (which I think will be more my speed). It seems like once a year I want to make a sweater that I don’t have to math up. I hope this (my 3rd) Custom Fit sweater will be the charm.

02-01-2018

So I’ve used 190 grams (840 yards) of the 250g (1105 yards) I have in the stash - making the front and back of this sweater. I estimate, if sleeves - and I’m only making 3/4 length - take @1/3 of total yarn used in a project, that I’m going to need another 95 g to make the sleeves.

Here’s the thing, I only have 59 g of blue left and I also have to knit the neck.

I estimate the neck band will take ~5g of yarn
I estimate that each sleeve will take 50g of yarn which means I need approx 100g of yarn to finish this sweater. BTW - I only have 42.5g of yarn per sleeve if I go with the pea coat PLUS the brass (and it appears I’ve made that decision) so I’m gonna have to shorten them by an inch or two. So far, this project has blocked super long, so I’m not particularly worried about shortening. But I am concerned that I did the math right when it comes to the amount I’ll use on the yellow vertical stripe I’ve also landed on. So much drama!

02-01-2018

What yarns do I have in my stash that are:

• In an amount equivalent to approx 40 g
• Having the same general weight and feel as the Finch

Options:

Quince Finch in Twig - 52g Obvious choice because it’s the same yarn BUT I don’t like the colour. Would I like it in stripes with navy, however? Must consider…

Koigu KPM in Cerise - 50g Great colour but techically about 25 per cent thicker than the Finch and the colour runs (not that this would be a problem when blocking with navy blue that does not run).

Shibui Staccato in Brass - 34g Another great colour but silk is v diff texture than wool and you only just have enough in the stash. Still could be an interesting contrast in fibers.

04-01-2018

Note: Custom Fit assessed that I’d need 1295 yards to make this sweater or 5.85 balls and that’s fairly accurate. Of course, I’m short .85 of a ball (aka I’m short about 175 yards). I’m going to make up for this by using the remainder of my Shibui in Brass - of which I have 34g remaining. It’s both thicker in gauge (so hopefully it will go farther) AND I’ve chopped about an inch off the length of the bicep area of the sleeve (below sleeve head) to make sure I have enough yarn.

05-01-2018

So one sleeve (HIGHLY modified as I went) took a total of 33g of yarn:

11 g of brass
22 g of pea coat

Having said this, and I can’t explain because I weighed everything numerous times, the sleeve only weighs 30g. What happened to 3g of yarn??

Final pre-blocked length is 15.75”, 2.5 inches shorter than the pattern recommended but this was to allow me to a) save yarn and b) somehow stick to the original gauge since I went off road to work with 2 highly different yarns.

I hate intarsia. This looks great but I’m only half done and it’s been a misery. Good news - the thinking should be done now that I’ve kept detailed notes on how I knit up the first sleeve.

In the end:

Used 190g of pea coat on front and back plus 4g for the neck and @1g for seaming. So 195g on body. Left me with approx 57g for 2sleeves. Of this, I used 42g - spread over the two sleeves, so 21-22g per sleeve. Have 15g remaining in the stash.

I used 22g of the brass on the sleeves - 11g per sleeve (because I wouldn’t have had quite enough of the blue yarn to finish them at the desired length). Ironically, I more or less would have had enough of the blue to make the sleeves without using the yellow but the yellow has really added some coolness to this sweater. Have 12g of the brass remaining. I’ve got a remarkable amount of use out of shibui staccato. It’s a bit unsung.

05-01-2018

Some useful numbers:

Sleeve: 97 yards of Finch pea coat, 84 yards of Shibui Stacatto in brass. Used approx 2:1 ratio of pea coat:brass on the sleeves, which is to say the stripe in colour took approx 1/3 of the yarn required to make the sleeves.

Ripped it Back

It turns out that I never wore this garment because the yarn was knitted at the wrong gauge and it really doesn’t suit this sweater. The shoulders are too large. It didn’t wear well at its gauge.I’m hoping that once I give the Quince yarn a bath / let it reset it will be useful for something. I don’t love the feel of this yarn anymore - though I knitted with it often in my early knitting years. But the colour is very useful so I’m sure it will be repurposed…

I reclaimed pretty well all of the yarn in the sweater (and couldn’t find any leftover - of which there was apparently only 2g. This gave me back 237g to work with on another project.