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Thursday, February 02, 2006

Disaster Averted

lavafate

This is the quite large ball of yarn left after ripping out, not 3, but 10 rows. And here is the end result:

goodlava

Yay! No more bad, bad collar! Patience pays off, whew!

hotlavafinish

Hot Lava by Jenifer Paulousky
4 skeins of Manos Del Uruguay 100% Wool - 138 yds/100 gr
Size 11 needles
Started Jan 18th - Finished Feb 1st

I guess I'll start with the modifications. I took 1" off the underarm seam or else the sleeves would have been too long (on me at least). Across the shoulders, I eliminated the "spine" and shortened it to 18" across instead of 21". I thought this would help eliminate the dreaded "poof" at the back, and it did a little bit. For the body when you get to the increases, I did only 8 repeats instead of the 11 called for the small size. This was due to #1, my row gauge was off - I was getting 4 sts for the pattern's 5 and #2 the collar was too big and was bunching at the neck.

If anyone is planning on making this in the future, I have two important tips for you. First, buy more yarn than called for! The first run, I ran out. After the collar correction, I had about 2 yards left (after taking three rows off the collar, making the sleeves shorter and taking 3" off the shoulder). This is especially important if you are making one of the larger sizes.

Second, make sure you bind off the collar very loosely! I used the lace bind off method and this is how you do it (this is for you Dana):)

Knit 1
*YO
Pass 1st st over YO and off needle
K1, pass previous st over
K1, pass previous st over*
continue from * to *

Basically, you are doing a normal bindoff, but adding a YO every two stitches. You can control the stretch of the edge by placing the YO every stitch for more stretch or every 3 for less stretch.

Overall, I am very happy with the finished sweater - even with the little collar issue. I couldn't help but wear it out today and I love it! It also gives me another sweater to wear my awesome rhinestone skull pin on! After a full day of wear I have no complaints of excessive stretching or pilling either.

5 comments:

goodkarma said...

Yay! You fixed it! Hot Lava looks great on you. Beautiful color you chose.

mia said...

cool! I'm still thinking about making the collar in 2x rib or to that effect. think that would work out? I have paranoia about my sleeves. my gauge has changed so much I can see it. not a good sign! but wool stretches, right? blocking fixes everything, right? right, okay.

maritza said...

It looks fantastic! Patience does pay off, because you have done a beautiful job of modifying this and making it even better. It looks great on you, too. Rock on Melissa! I love the skull pin.

Moni said...

Hot lava looks great on you!

Thanks for teh directions for the loose bindoff..It will definately come in handy :)

Stacy said...

This is so cute! It looks really good on you, and I love the color. I'm sure it was well worth the frustration!