The Self-Made Wardrobe Week 8 – sweater weather is here
I still don’t have jeans. I still desperately want jeans.
But unfortunately it’s starting to get a bit chilly, and what I really need more than jeans, are sweaters. Lots of cushy, cozy, warm sweaters.
So my quest for jeans is being put aside for the moment in favor of sweater knitting. Lots and lots of sweater knitting.
I’m this close to finishing my Versio sweater. Yay!
I’m almost done with a sweater I started three years ago. Double yay!
I started knitting a black lace weight sweater that’s a total nightmare to knit, but I know that I’ll love wearing. Half a yay?
Plus there’s the pile of half finished sweaters I’ve started through the years…
Also! I got my tripod – so I’m going to play around with taking garment photos – (yay! & eep! all at the same time).
If you want to know the moment I figure out how to take photos that really show off the pieces I’m making (and that don’t make me look like a monster) – hop on the mailing list to get blog posts delivered straight to your inbox.
The Versio Sweater – hood, finishing, and making twisted cord
The pattern for Versio has a wide deep square collar, but instead of working the collar I followed Rililie’s notes on Ravelry about how to create a hood.
I was pleased enough with the way it came out to use it as a starting point for the hood I worked on my (Hopefully) Perfect Transitional Weather Sweater.
After the knitting was all done and the (mountain of) ends were woven in, I went back and duplicate stitched around the bottom of the V neck to tighten the loose stitches, and fix some wobbly ones.
It’s a little bulky in real life, but not too bad, and I don’t think it’ll be noticeable while I’m wearing it.
The bottom hem, and the hems at the wrists, are worked flat and turned under to create a tube that you’re supposed to thread cording through.
Since I used so many colors on my sweater, and the hems are worked in the yellow and black, I played around with a couple different color combinations.
I tried four combinations: yellow & black; all of the colors together (yellow & red & blue & black); yellow & red & blue; yellow & blue.
I ended up going with the yellow and blue. The yellow and black cording got lost, and the other combinations looked pretty harsh, against the yellow and black of the hem.
Making twisted cord is a lot of fun, and a little bit addicting.
You basically hold your strands of yarn together, insert a bunch of twist, fold the length in half, and let it twist back up on itself.
Indstructables, Stitch Diva Studios, and About.com-Knitting, all have good tutorials on how to make twisted cords.
The tutorials above suggest adding the twist by hand, or using a kitchen mixer, or a power drill – but I just used my spindle.
This morning’s very rainy weather, has me super excited to be so close to done with this sweater.
sweaters, shawls, and jeans
Each Wednesday I post little snippets about the projects I’m working on.
You can see all of the Wednesday posts here.
So I didn’t manage to completely finish two sweaters this week, which was my very relaxed “goal” from last week, but I did make a lot of progress.
If you follow my on instagram, you saw the massive pile of ends that I had to weave in on my Versio sweater, as well as my experiments with different colors of cording for the hems.
I ended up going with yellow and blue cording, now the sweater just needs to be washed, blocked, photographed, and worn. Yay!
My (hopefully perfect) transitional sweater has sleeves (!) and I have the zipper.
So now it’s just another pile of ends to weave in, before I can wash it, block it, insert the zipper and wear it!!!
I also started super basic black pullover out of a lace weight. It’s a nightmare to knit, but I know that I’ll get an amazing amount of wear out of it. So for now, I’m just trusting the process.
My shawl is about a repeat and a half away from being done!
I want jeans like there’s no tomorrow, but right now sweater knitting is coming first. I know that with tights and socks, I can wear my skirts for a couple more months without any problems, but I know that if I don’t get some sweaters done I’m going to hate myself in a week or two. Damn it self-made wardrobe! 🙂
