Little Red Sweater
One of the challenges in the HPKCHC last month was to knit something that was made from at least 50% plant fiber. Looking around my stash (well virtually anyways in Ravelry), I noticed that I had 5 skeins of Cascade Pima Tencel that I had bought years ago to make a sleeveless top. Looking closely at the yardage though, I was sure I could get a small sweater out of it, especially if I was willing to have half or 3/4 length sleeves.
Pattern: 3-Hour Sweater
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Pima Tencel
Yarn Supplier: WEBS
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm & US 8 / 5.0
Pattern: 3-Hour Sweater
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Pima Tencel
Yarn Supplier: WEBS
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm & US 8 / 5.0
Modifications: You know there had to be a bunch, right? Especially since it was (loosely) based on a vintage 1930s pattern.
I cast on 134 stitches in the round, rather than the smaller suggested number and in pieces. I also used a smaller needle size than suggested because of the "paparazzi effect" many Ravelers had complained of when using size 10.5 needles.
I extended the bottom ribbing to for from the beginning of my hips to the start of my bust, then switched to stockinette just before starting the arm holes. I changed this to have a scoop neckline instead of the one suggested in the pattern. And rather than using a set-in sleeve, I adapted this to have a raglan shoulders by using a crocheted provisional cast-on for the sleeve stitches. This also allowed me to knit the sleeves last, making them as long as possible with the yarn amount I had.
The result is a very fitted sweater that I could try on all along the process to make sure it fit the way I wanted it too. It also, not surprisingly, took significantly longer than 3 hours to make. Totally worth the time though, it was still very fast!
My only complaint was that the yarn, which is lovely and soft, not to mention an amazing color, produced huge amounts of fuzzies that are now covering basically my entire house. My girlfriend who lives with us even found some in the shower one morning, even though the sweater had not ever been in that room. Washing it helped, and putting it in the dryer by itself helped even more. I still don't trust it enough to wash it with other things yet though.
I cast on 134 stitches in the round, rather than the smaller suggested number and in pieces. I also used a smaller needle size than suggested because of the "paparazzi effect" many Ravelers had complained of when using size 10.5 needles.
I extended the bottom ribbing to for from the beginning of my hips to the start of my bust, then switched to stockinette just before starting the arm holes. I changed this to have a scoop neckline instead of the one suggested in the pattern. And rather than using a set-in sleeve, I adapted this to have a raglan shoulders by using a crocheted provisional cast-on for the sleeve stitches. This also allowed me to knit the sleeves last, making them as long as possible with the yarn amount I had.
The result is a very fitted sweater that I could try on all along the process to make sure it fit the way I wanted it too. It also, not surprisingly, took significantly longer than 3 hours to make. Totally worth the time though, it was still very fast!
My only complaint was that the yarn, which is lovely and soft, not to mention an amazing color, produced huge amounts of fuzzies that are now covering basically my entire house. My girlfriend who lives with us even found some in the shower one morning, even though the sweater had not ever been in that room. Washing it helped, and putting it in the dryer by itself helped even more. I still don't trust it enough to wash it with other things yet though.
posted by omly at 6:15 PM
1 Comments:
Hi,
your sweater is gorgeous, it looks so good on you. Thanks for sharing:-)
Post a Comment
<< Home