Meet the New Coraline

I finished my Coraline sweater over Thanksgiving weekend and I'm extremely pleased with the results. I think it was worth all of the ripping and reknitting, as it's now stylistically akin to some of my very favorite sweaters and much more flattering than the original cardigan version.

The rework wasn't an entirely smooth process; I ended up knitting the hem about 3 times before I got it right. I finally settled on a [K1, P2] rib on needles 2 sizes smaller than what I used for the body. I've never used smaller needles for a hem before, but they made a huge difference in terms of fit and crispness of the rib. I don't think I'll ever go back to knitting sweaters with only one needle size.

Overall, I'm glad I was able to find extra yarn to rework this sweater, especially because the sweater now features my favorite 3/4-length sleeves. Still, I need to be more careful in the future about picking flattering styles to begin with. From here on out, I'd like to avoid the guilt of never wearing a handknit sweater and the hassle of reworking said sweater into a better style.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope all of my American readers had a happy Thanksgiving yesterday! Husband and I are enjoying some time with my family, though I'm not sure what he's enjoying more: the company, the food, or the James Bond marathon on Dad's big TV (I think it's the last one). Personally, I'm happy to have a few days off to catch up on things, such as schoolwork and knitting.

The extra free time has been very beneficial, as my sweater is finished and soaking even as I write this. The state of the sleeves evidences how necessary this soak is; you can clearly tell which stitches were part of the original sweater, which stitches were knit with curly just-frogged yarn, and which stitches were added with smooth yarn. I can't wait to try the sweater on once things smooth out!

Hemming and Hawing

I'm getting near the bottom hem of my Coraline sweater, but I haven't made enough progress since my last post to to bother with a new photo. Instead, you're getting a silly photo of my husband and I after his sister's wedding last Saturday. As you can tell from the picture, the wedding was a lot of fun!

I'm hoping to have the body of the sweater done by next week, which means I have to quickly decide on a hem. The original sweater had a [K1, P1] hem, but I'm considering a folded hem or a [K1, P2] hem. Either way, I think the hem needs to be deeper than the one inch it was previously. If you have any thoughts on hems, I would love to hear them!

Coraline Progress

It's a busy week here at the Briney Deep. I've had a couple big assignments due for class and I'm looking forward to being in my sister-in-law's wedding on Saturday. Luckily, I've had something mindless to work on to keep me from getting too stressed.

I've made a lot of progress on the new body of my Coraline sweater, especially because I can knit in stockinette and read for class at the same time. Thank goodness for multitasking or I would never get any knitting done.

Coraline Revisited

I had a serendipitous moment this weekend while I was waiting for a store to open up: I popped into the nearby yarn shop to kill time and stumbled upon the exact type and color of yarn I've been actively trying to find. This fortuitous event means that I can finally modify my Coraline sweater into something that I'll actually wear.

I mentioned in a recent blog post that I need to lengthen this sweater's sleeves, but I've also decided to convert the sweater from a cardigan into a pullover. This style is more flattering for my body-type, which favors a defined waist and an open neckline. As I constructed the sweater from the top-down, both the body-type and sleeve modifications should be fairly easy to execute.

To begin this process, I ripped the body back to just below the arm divide. I'm leaving the yoke split above this point, partly to keep the modifications simple and partly because the plunging neckline will be flattering. From here, I will reknit the body back downward, but this time in the round.

A secondary part of this process will be 'finishing' my frogged yarn to remove the kinks it accumulated while knit up into the sweater. It's a time-consuming step, but I think it will make a difference in the gauge of the final sweater. All told, these modifications will be some work, but I have high hopes for how everything will turn out.