Stitches

Fpdtr = yo 3 times after pulling up a loop.
Fpttr = yo 4 times after pulling up a loop.

Modifications

Altered design so that blue always crosses over burgundy rather then being interlaced. That way the blue wouldn’t be fighting for dominance. Compare with gauge swatch for the difference.

Shortened to end at my high hip.

April 18, 2020

Woah…. should have tried wrapping it around me sooner (or just re-checking the gauge). Turns out I made a 12-inch long trapezoid. Now pulling it all back to the first inch (or less?), with plans to resume with a hook that’s larger than 4mm.

April 22, 2020

Yep… so far so good with a 5mm hook.

April 30, 2020

Back up to about 12 inches now, but using much less yarn, and many fewer rows (wish I’d bothered to count the rows that were too tight).

May 3, 2020

Test-fitted for length when front 4.25 inches beyond start of underarm: will start front neck there, and make armhole 7 inches deep instead of 8.5 inches.

Will work out changes to sleeve cap later.

May 16, 2020

Ha! I thought there was a misprint, but it turns out I was just too accustomed to only paying attention to the odd rows. It looked like the shaping was done on the left shoulder only (by leaving the last few stitches of the RS rows unworked) because there wasn’t a matching number of slip stitches at the beginning of each RS row. Doh! The shaping is just stepped: instead of returning all the way, the WS row stops short.

Finished the body and basted it together. Will wait until tomorrow to test the fit.

May 17, 2020

Verdict: the fit seems fine. It gapes at the back neck, but not so much that it can’t be taken up by the edging.

Now I just have to decide if I’m brave enough to tackle redrafting the sleeves for the adjusted armscye. Very tempting to skip over that for now and do the collar and edging instead.

May 18, 2020

Realized it would need to be blocked while flat before doing the collar and edging, so undid the basting and went ahead with that. Pinning it out took ages because each criss-cross needs four pins per color to get the lines sharp.

Unfortunately…. pinning it out revealed that I somehow managed to get the upper back off-set by an inch, leaving one armscye super-skinny, the other super wide. No amount of blocking was going to fix that, so I covered the upper back with a towel and spray-dampened everything else (rather than waste all the pinning).

Next day (today) I spent a couple of hours unraveling the upper back without disturbing the rest of the pinned-out sweater. Counted out the open space: 82 stitches. So now I need to figure out where the upper back needs to be started for it to be centered.

May 20, 2020

Turns out it wasn’t that the upper back was offset, it’s that I somehow stopped short after the second row, so it was two inches too narrow on the back left. Given that it was still a bit wide across the upper back, I’m redoing it 64 stitches wide (instead of 76), leaving 9 stitches unworked under each arm. I’ll worry about the change to the armscye later.

May 23, 2020

Used 5g less yarn when redoing the upper back. There’s still a bit of gaping at the back neck, but that’s just ease that will be pulled into the collar.

May 30, 2020

Note to self when working sleeves from bottom up: make one entire sleeve before starting the next. Working both to the start of the sleeve cap pretty much guarantees that alterations to the length and width below will be needed!

Am leaving the problem sleeve basted in for comparison later, and pulling out the other (which didn’t have a cap yet). Have worked out arithmetic of replacement sleeve with pencil and paper thus:

• Start with 30 sc
• Increase on row 9, then on every 6th row until last 2 increases, which come in row 91 (60 st) and row 95 (62 st)
• Begin diagonal cables on row 35, 67, and 99… and near top of sleeve cap
• Major decrease for sleeve cap on row 99
• Shape sleeve cap to be 40 st high and approx. 41 st wide

August 15, 2020

Set this aside to work on lighter weight things in the heat of the summer, but had to suspend work on the burgundy lace top because of a lost hook, so I’m back at it now.

August 16, 2020

Finished the re-caculated sleeve and test-fitted it. Seems to be fine. Next step: remove basting and unravel the failed sleeve.

August 18, 2020

Started second sleeve today.

September 6, 2020

Finished the 2nd re-done sleeve. Interestingly, it used about the same amount of yarn as the problem version, so the problem was all to do with proportion, not surface area.

September 7, 2020

Gently pinned curl out of both sleeves for size comparison (no tension): 2nd sleeve (on left in photo) crocheted looser than gauge above the first criss-cross. Half-inch difference at second criss-cross; one-inch difference at underarm. Now pulling 2nd sleeve back to the first criss-cross.

September 9, 2020

Finished the re-done second sleeve, so now they match.

September 12, 2020

Collar works out to 110 stitches wide.

September 18, 2020

Basted in both sleeves then basted the front closed to see if 8 inches was good for the collar. Seems fine: drapes more than in the pattern photo, but I like that.

The shoulders are a bit wide. Seems okay if i give the sleeve caps a tug onto my shoulders, but I’m not going to remember to do that, so I’ll leave a wider seam when sewing them for real.

Did a row of sc along both front edges, skipping every 4th row, to create a neat edge for the crab stitch (necessary because one edge had the cable row, so there would have been nothing for the crab stitch to grab onto without being hidden under the cable; the other side had the floats from changing colors, so was messy).

September 19, 2020

Added a row of sc across bottom edge and cuffs, too, to keep things tight and even (and be able to crab stitchinto the top of a sc), rather than crab stitching into each single loop.

Finished all the crab stitching, but will save resetting the sleeves for when I’m well-rested.

November 15, 2020

Picked this up again now that I’m blocking the Eudemia sweater. Shortened the zipper and sewed it in, then marked where the shoulder points should be.