Evening Sweater

A world full of pencil skirts and full twirly skirts emphasizing narrow waists; party dresses with halter necks and crinoline; cute little form-fitting short-sleeved sweaters; dates to the soda fountain; and my world (or at least my kitchen) decked out in red, yellow, and seafoam-green aluminum, Formica, and plastic...

Well, at least I can have the sweater!

It's this "“evening sweater"” from this 1959 pattern. It has a great V in the back, and I have no idea what the front neckline is to look like --I guess I'’ll figure it out as I'm knitting it and adjust as necessary. I'm using double-stranded Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud (yes, it's been re-allocated from this misshapen thing. I decided that it's not worth the effort to try to fix that wrap, and I can knit a prettier one than I can crochet, anyway). I'’m using size 3 needles, so it will probably take me forever to complete. And hopefully it will fit my sans-girdle waist.

I've been buying vintage patterns lately. I don't know if I'’ll ever do much with any of them, largely because they use such small needles and may end up fitting weird, but it'’s plenty of fun just looking at them and being inspired. Here are a few that I'm particularly excited about. Click for bigger pics and descriptions.

Accidental Two-Tone Cabled Tank

Finally! It seems like this one took forever....I spent about a week knitting most of it, but then I lost steam on the straps (they're so boring to knit), so that took another 2 weeks...or was it 3?...but it was in that almost-completed stage for so long that I feel like I've been waiting for it for ages.

I think I was very successful with my modifications to the neckline to make it, you know, cover me. It did take some trial and error to figure out what I wanted to do, so I knit the neck v several times. The first time I decided to just follow the pattern directions and see what happened, but it was clear that it would be as bad as I'd feared. So I played around with it and ended up just adding a couple of inches in of cables in between the two top triangles.



Other deviations from the pattern include knitting it in the round and making the straps narrower and having them cross in the back. I sewed them to the back of the tank instead of the halter-tie that the pattern had. I also haven't done any of the crocheting that the pattern suggests, but am still thinking about it along the bottom edge...but I probably won't do it since that would involve more work and I can consider it "done" as is.

So I'm very happy with how it turned out and amazed that it fits so well, especially with no waist shaping. One of my favorite things about it is the way that the cable outlines the edges of the triangles.



But do you notice anything weird?

There's a color change. This is what I get for buying yarn out of one of those weird hodge-podge bins...my two skeins are different colors, and I didn't notice until I started using the second one. I think it's a little more noticeable in the pictures than it is in person, what with the flash and all. If it had happened lower down in the tank, I think it would be bad, but since the color-change line is almost exactly where the pattern changes, I don't think it's a big deal. I could over-dye the whole thing (grape kool-aid, maybe?) to try to even out the colors, but I don't think I'm going to, at least for now.