Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Out of the knitting bag and into the closet



Ta-da!

It's magic! Four and a half months' worth of stitching, cabling, measuring, trying-on, adding-extra magic. It's my first garment and the first thing I've knit just for myself, and despite a few flaws--there's no picture of the back here, but we'll say that the ribbed edge and the "seamless" join are artfully asymmetrical--I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out (blocking helped a lot). And I'm sure I'm not the only one who's tired of monitoring its progress. So: welcome to the wardrobe, shrug! (The shrug is noncommittal.)

The knitterly details, for those who care:

Pattern: Cabled Shrug, Interweave Knits Summer 2005
Yarn: Rowan Soft Baby in Cloud, 4.5(?) balls
Needles: Susan Bates US 5 straights
Notes: This (free internet) pattern didn't include a size of any kind, and it turned out to be written for tiny people. Thankfully, it was knitted from the sleeves in, so I just kept knitting extra rows until it fit. I added a ribbon closure to keep everything in place. Other than that, things went reasonably well for my first big project. Hurrah!

Now I'm working in earnest on the socks I took to England. I love them even though I'm fairly sure that 80% of the stitches will have been knitted at least twice by the time I'm done, as I am flying entirely by the seat of my pants and feeling free to interpret the pattern as I see fit. I'm going heavy on the lifelines, having already performed major surgery once this week--the odds that I'll have to rip back a bit are excellent. I've just turned the heel and taken a first shot at the beginning of the heel flap, but I think I'm going to take advantage of the most recent lifeline and try again. These are my Learning Socks, and I personally think they're pretty great, plain stockinette or no.

Knit on!

2 comments:

Dogeared said...

Pretty! Well done, it looks lovely!

Liz said...

Thanks! I'm pretty pleased with it, myself.