The camera cord is found!
So here's the teddy bear:
Isn't it adorable? One of String's customers makes bears completely by hand, sewing and embroidering and everything. She comes to String to buy Koigu to make sweaters for some of the bears! It's the cutest thing I've ever seen. Every time she comes I look through the bears she brought and this one spoke to me, so I just had to have it. Now, I won't be starting a bear collection anytime soon, so don't worry. This little guy sits on top of the TV and won't be joined by any others!
The bear company is called Minikins and if you want to get in touch with her, comment or email me and I will give you her contact info. Unfortunately she doesn't have a website so I can't link to her (I keep telling her she needs a website!).
And now for what you came her for:
Sorry this is so overexposed, I couldn't get any texture to show without turning on the flash. The sweater's still black, not grey!
That's the finished back and the start of the right front of Katherine Hepburn. I used almost exactly 6 balls finishing the sleeve and back, so that means I am about on track to need 12 balls total (because two fronts and a sleeve will use the same amount as a back and a sleeve). I might end up needing another ball to do the buttonbands since they are pretty wide, but I don't mind buying another one.
What's weird about this yarn breakdown is that the back used about twice the amount of yarn for the sleeve, even though it's a 3/4 length sleeve. The "standard" breakdown is that the back is 1/3, the front(s) are 1/3, and the sleeves together are 1/3 of yarn usage. So logically you would expect a 3/4 length sleeve to eat LESS than 1/6 the total yarn, but somehow I ended up with the same proportion.
This is one of those knitting mysteries that I try not to think about too much or I end up with a headache and an unbearable need to rip the project out to stare at it trying to figure it out . . .
Anyway, onto things I do understand. You can only kind of see it in the picture, but I added waist shaping to the body of KH. I decided to take 4 sts from each side, which means 8 sts total, or just over 1" of fabric, away from the waist to give it a little more shape. I knew I would decrease 4 times and increase 4 times, so that means 8 shaping rows (with decreases/increases at each end of the row).
To figure out how often they should occur, I divided the body length (13.5" to armhole) by 9, is 1.5". Why 9, you ask? Because you need to have space above the last shaping row, otherwise it would fall on the armhole shaping row, so you'd be increasing and binding off the same stitches which isn't possible OR pretty. So I knew I had to work a shaping row every 1.5", so I multiplied 1.5 by my row gauge, which is 8.5 rows per inch. The final vedirct: I had to work a shaping row every 12th row.
Enough math for one day, I'm going back to knitting. I bought more yarn yesterday, maybe I'll show you tomorrow. That, or the finished Kersti sweater . . . happy Monday everyone!
2 Responses
Mel
Trying to read the math and comprehend without actually having a pair of needles and yarn in front of me makes me a bit dizzy, but I like that you’re explaining it. Now, if we could only work out a perfect solution for photographing knitting projects – mine always turn out overexposed or unfocused.
nancy
April 01, 2007
Can you please tell me where I can find the Katherine Hepburn Cardigan pattern? Thanks!