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St Brigid: FO

jody — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:10:12 +0000

alternatively entitled, the post that took 3 years to write

It’s finally done, and I find myself at a loss for words. I’ve been done for a full week now, and I still can’t quite believe that it’s true.
I knit St. Brigid
There were many false starts (including one I never documented). I’m not quite sure why this time did the trick. The color? Maybe. The deadline? Maybe. The encouraging comments? Most definitely.
I have so many people to thank, and I’m positive I’m going to forget some of them. Thanks to Katy for hosting the KAL, Vicki for finishing hers almost 3 years ago and being an awesome cheerleader for my own, Marnie for encouraging me to consider retaining the saddle shoulder, Christy for knowing the right amount of good-natured ribbing to keep me on course (because she knows how fickle I can be!), Jessica and Kristy for enduring our Thursday night get togethers with endless whining about my boredom, EZ because without her I may not have had the courage to consider modifying this sweater as much as I did, and to Maggie Righetti because her chapter on sleeve shapes kicks ass.
I knit this sweater in under 10 weeks, and I don’t recommend it. My hands hurt. I was bored. I was hyper-focused every weekend and I was up until 2am the Sunday of Rhinebeck just so I could wear it in 75° heat. In my ideal world I would have taken a break after the body was done, but maybe in my ideal world I never would have finished at all.
specs
pattern St. Brigid by Alice Starmore from Aran Knitting
yarn Cascade 220 Aporto. 9.5 skeins
needles Knit Picks options size 6
mods tons, read my archive for a full list
sleeves and hood
The sleeves came out rather nicely and pretty much as planned (thankyouverymuch Maggie Righetti). There’s a lot to share on the sleeves so I’ll write that up as a separate post. The quick scoop is that I changed them to a set-in style (but retained the saddles) and knit them 2 at a time because I was afraid I wouldn’t take good enough notes to knit them individually.
The hood worked out pretty well too. I knit 4 repeats of the chart up each side and then grafted the 2 sides together (they’re mirror images of each other so they grafted together perfectly). My grafting is a bit tight in a couple places so I may go back and loosen that up a tad.
thoughts on the sweater
I never expected this to be a shapely sweater. Having said that, it’s still a bit more bulk-adding than I expected. I probably could have gone down an inch or two more in the body and still have been OK, but I wasn’t sure because bulkier sweaters need more circumference to fit right.
I love wearing it and love the fact that I finally made it. I’ve hit a milestone in my knitting that I thought I might never hit, and in doing so I’ve learned a few new things about why I knit and what it means to me. It’s going to take some time to gather my thoughts, so I’ll leave that to my next post.
For now, will you excuse me while I pop around town in my new sweater!

I think I can I think I can…

jody — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:34:17 +0000

After a marathon knitting session yesterday, and a marathon seaming session this morning, all that’s left is the hood.
I’m feeling a big relief now that:

the sleeves are knit
the sleeve caps fit
the saddles are knit and look good
i’ve tried it on without the use of pins and it still fits!
i have almost 3 hanks left so i can’t possibly run out of yarn
the only finishing work that remains is to graft the hood — and I like grafting!

Someone must be on my side because I finished knitting the sleeves at 11:30 last night. By the time they soaked and got rung out and on the blocking board it was midnight. I left the ceiling fan on high overnight, and by 6 am they were bone dry. No kidding, they were completely dry.
I’m looking forward to knitting the hood — two “small” cables and a huge span of stockinette. My hands will certainly thank me (I think cabling without a cable needle is harder on my hands).
I have lots more to share about how I calculated the sleeves, but I’ve already taken a 2.5 hour break. I’m still hopeful I’ll finish the hood tonight, and since I still have some shopping to do as well as getting a hair cut, buying a pair of prescription sunglasses, laundry and dyeing my hair myself, I best finish tonight or I’ll have to start crossing things off my list. We leave for Rhinebeck Thursday after work, so there’s not much time left.
The payoff though — a full day on Friday at the cottage with the girls.

Now with 100% Front

jody — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:01:13 +0000

I did it! I got through the front!

i’m a little curvy since i’m still unblocked
And damn if it doesn’t feel good. For the first time on this project, I feel like it’s completely doable. Not just if-I-hope-and-pray-and-don’t-have-to-rip-back-too-much-or-f-up-the-armholes-or-the-front-split.
A couple details:

front split
I’m giving enough detail so someone else could copy me if that’s of any interest. I’m sure I won’t remember this in a few months.
The front consists of 8 repeats of the main cables. I split the front at the start of repeat 6. Instead of continuing with the Chart D (the big center chart) I split them into Chart E (split) Chart C.
Then, to make a smooth edge, I did an attached 3-stitch i-cord edge flanked by a single purl stitch as follows:
row 3 Follow Chart C. You’ll have one extra purl stitch in the middle before you start to follow Chart E. Increase 1 using a lifted increase, knit f&b into the center purl stitch (these 2 sts split to form each of the i-cord edges), increase 1 using a lifted increase, and then follow Chart E.
row 4 When you get to the area with the new increases, slip the first increase purlwise wyif, m1 knitwise, slip the next st purlwise wyif. Attach a new ball of yarn, slip next st purlwise wyif, m1 knitwise, slip next st purlwise wyif, knit Chart C.
At this point, your attached i-cord has been setup. Next step is to add in the purl stitch between the i-cord and the cables.
row 5 Knit in pattern until you reach the i-cord. M1 purlwise, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1. With other ball of yarn, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1, m1 purlwise, cont with Chart E.
All following WS rows Cont in patt to purl st before i-cord, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif. With other ball of yarn, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1, slip 1 purlwise wyif, k1, cont in patt.
You’ve now split the neck and have an i-cord on each edge.
setup for hood
As you can probably guess by now, I’m going to continue the cables flanking the i-cord all the way around the hood. To give the hood a comfortable fit, I stopped knitting the center cable one repeat before the end (in other words, I knit 7 repeats instead of 8). Those stitches are on some waste yarn and I’ll pick them back up and continue once I start knitting the hood.
armhole decreases
I find that armholes can often distort in the curved area, misshaping it and creating a larger armhole than I wanted. To address this, I slipped the first stitch of each row.
For aesthetics, I also decreased into the armhole. So, at the start of rows I did a k2tog, and at the end of rows, I did a ssk. I did these decreases one stitch in from the edge.
So, decrease rows went as follows (always on a RS row):
Slip 1, k2tog, cont in patt until 3 sts rem, ssk, k1.
All WS rows were:
Slip 1, cont in patt until end
Once the decreases were finished, I stopped slipping the first stitch because I didn’t want the armhole to bind. I just wanted to give it some extra support.
shoulder bindoff with cables
This is the place where I winged it the most. If I just bound off I would have had too much cable splay — the bound off edge would have been wider than the garment itself.
After a little experimentation, the solution that worked in most cases was to decrease whenever 2 cables would have eventually crossed. Occasionally, I’d notice there was still a bit of splay, so I’d tink back, decrease another stitch, and continue on.
staging the front
What would a St Brigid post be without showing you how I took the pics? With autumn’s arrival, morning light is getting less abundant. Lolly’s post this morning reminded me of my own light tent. So, I took it out of the back of the closet so I could get some decent pics early enough this morning.

Thank you!
If you’ve made it this far then you deserve a huge thank you! All your comments have really motivated me to keep on going. And while I haven’t personally responded to each one, I want you to know how much they’re really appreciated. Thank you thank you thank you!

St Brigid’s got back

jody — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:00:00 +0000

I finally cast off the back yesterday.
It took longer than I expected because I had to decide how I wanted to do the hood on the front in order to determine how many stitches to allocate to each shoulder. I think I’ve come up with a great plan — I’m really excited and can’t wait to see how the front hood transition works.
I wanted to block the back before I cast on for the front. I needed to make sure it blocked out to the measurements I expected — and if not, come up with a plan for the front that would take that into account. Fortunately, it blocked out well and I’m good to go without any further mods to the front.
You may be wondering why I didn’t do any neck shaping. This is because the saddle will create that neck shaping. So, all I had to do was slope the shoulders a bit. I’m still a little concerned with how I’m going to attach the saddles to the pieces, but I have a long way to go before I get to try that out.
oops

I only had 8 rows left on the back when I looked down and realized I missed crossing the center cable about 10 rows down. I knew if I didn’t fix it right away I might end up avoiding it for a while, so I knit to that point and dropped down that section and re-knit it. After a wet block I can’t tell (phew!)
pictures are hard
Getting pics of something as big and textured as the back wasn’t easy.

First, I placed it on my coffee table and propped it up with one of my all-time favorite cookbooks*. I got good lighting but I couldn’t keep the camera steady enough.
Of course, I couldn’t tell that in my viewfinder, so it wasn’t until I saw them on my screen that I realized I needed more pics.

Finally, the one that worked was propping it on the side of the coffee table and resting my camera on the step stool. It’s still not perfect though. You might be wondering why I didn’t just use the tripod. I’m wondering the same thing.
* My favorite cookbook — CookWise by Shirley Corriher. It’s no wonder this book got a James Beard Award for 1998 Cookbook of the Year. She doesn’t just give you good recipes, she explains why things work and don’t. In 1970 she divorced her husband and had to find a way to support her three boys. She’s a biochemist by training and was the cook at the boys’ school she and her husband founded, so she tuned to cooking. After 30 years in the food profession, she wrote Cookwise — teaching you things like how to determine if a recipe is appropriately leavened, and why you need to do things like cream butter and sugar a lot — it’s the bubbles! I love her approach. She gives us the knowledge we need to create great food on our own, and includes recipes for lots of staples like breadbaking, pie crust, cookies and cakes, cooking proteins (meats), and making non-lumpy sauces. And since it was published exactly 10 years ago today, I thought it was a sign that I should give her a little plug.

Sleeve Options

jody — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:41:13 +0000

As I’ve been knitting I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how I want to tackle the sleeves. As I see it, I have three options, each with their pros and cons.

Modified drop shoulder
Set-in sleeves
Raglan

If you recall, I’m modifying the sleeves so I can reduce some of the bulk. Drop shoulders always add bulk. But, on someone who has a torso that’s much bigger than their shoulders the drop shoulder is even less flattering. Why? As people get larger, their shoulders get larger at a much slower rate than their torsos.
A quick check at the CYC’s Women’s Size Charts shows that for women whose bust measurements range from 28 – 42 inches, their shoulder width only ranges from 14 – 17.5 inches. That means, while the body of their garments increased 7 inches (7 inches for one half of the body, say, just the front), their shoulders only increased half of that. The amount of additional fabric in the underarm area has doubled!!
What this means is that the larger your torso is, the more difficult it’s going to be for a drop shoulder silhouette to look good on you.
The drop shoulder has got to go.
Shoulder Shaping
In addition to modifying the sleeve, I’m also adding in some shoulder shaping. This will also help with the extra underarm fabric. Shoulder shaping mimics the actual slope of our shoulders. You’re going to get a better fit any time you can make the garment mimic your shape more closely.
OK, on to the sleeves.
Modified drop shoulder

Pros

Most similar to the original design. I could even keep the shoulder saddles, which I consider a real plus.
Least disruptive to the cable patterning.
Easiest modification to execute.

Cons

Will still leave some extra fabric under the arm.
Hardest to estimate the true look of because I don’t have any sweaters that fit this way.

Set-in Sleeve

Pros

Best fit — will eliminate the most bulk.

Cons

I couldn’t retain the shoulder saddles. Well, technically I could but I think they’d look very awkward.
While I like the way this sleeve fits, I’m afraid it might change the overall look of the sweater.

Raglan Sleeve

Pros

Will eliminate some bulk
Fun to knit — each row gets shorter!

Cons

Since it’s knitted from the bottom up, I’d have to figure out how to knit the sleeves so the cables match up. While not impossible, cursing and hissy fits will certainly be likely.
If set-in sleeves would change the look, raglans will change the look even more.

Given all that, which way do you think I should go? Before I drew up the sketches I was strongly leaning toward the modified drop. But after looking at the sketches, I’m seriously reconsidering the set-in sleeve. Although, I keep getting stuck on that saddle shoulder. Hmm…

St Brigid All the Way

jody — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:42:18 +0000

Kathleen and Vicki hit the nail on the head. It was the old guard article with the pic of Alice wearing her very own St Brigid that did me in. The moment I turned the page and saw that it was all over. I even picked a shade similar to hers.

I find it interesting that my St Brigid KAL buddies were the only ones to note that Alice was wearing St Brigid in the pic. Once that sweater is in your blood it’s there for good. I’ve considered knitting it several times a year and have cast on for it no less than 4 times — you can see 2 shades of green here in December 05, natural in December 04, and dark gray in August 04. I also remember a purple/black shade of Cascade 220 called Rainier Heather, but it doesn’t look like I blogged about it.
So in this case 6th time is a charm because I am 100% sold on this color.
stop laughing Christy i’m serious here
It’s no surprise either, given that it very closely matches one of my all-time favorite sweaters.

So are you curious who won?
Six of you guessed St Brigid out of 45 votes, and….
Kathleen won!
Congratulations Kathleen! It seems fitting that you won since you’re a big part of the reason I started and have continued to be obsessed with this sweater for so long.
What did Kathleen win? Well, I’m not sure yet. We’re in talks now
St Brigid in 10 weeks?
Yeah, it’ll be tight. And, just like you’d expect, I have a few mods planned.
Firstly, I’m going to adjust the sleeves. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to do a modified drop sleeve or a set-in sleeve. I hadn’t considered a set-in sleeve for an aran, but the Phildar Hoodie has set-in sleeves and it looks pretty good.
I’m also planning to adjust the neckline. While I love the look, a round neck is not a good shape for me. I’m considering a hood but I need to give some more thought to how the transition from front cables to hood can work.
Here’s my rough schedule in order to stay finish on time:

back: 2 weeks through Aug 26th
front: 2 weeks through Sept 9th
sleeve 1: 1.5 weeks through Sept 19th
sleeve 2: 1.5 weeks through Sept 30th
hood: 1 week through Oct 7th
finishing: 1 week through Oct 14th

That takes up every weekend from now through Rhinebeck. I probably don’t need 2 weeks total for the hood and finishing, but a little slack in a schedule is always a good thing.
For you, my dear readers, this may not be very exciting. This leaves very little room for me to knit anything other than St Brigid. This also means that my festival stash won’t get any smaller.
But, if I can walk around Rhinebeck wearing St Brigid, I’ll be just fine with that.
just in case you’re thinking of warning me about indian summer and how Rhinebeck was really warm 2 years ago — i don’t care. it’s not that i’m denying that it can happen, but Rhinebeck is all about celebrating fall knitting to me. if it’s too warm to wear a sweater like St Brigid then i’ll walk around in a tshirt, with my st brigid tied around my waist i’m sure