Fixed!

Yesterday when I finished Rusted Root, despite the few things with which I was dissatisfied, I was too tired of it to put any more effort into it. I thought it was fine as it was, and I had planned to wear it today. However, the heavy rain this morning caused me to rethink my wardrobe plans, so I didn't end up wearing it today.

I hadn't been too concerned about the problems until I saw the pictures of it (the problems really showed up in the pics), and I spent the day mulling it over and decided I needed to spend a little more time on it and fix the things that were bugging me.

I wove in a bit of yarn on the back at the spot where I'd made a mistake in the lace to make that large hole smaller. I *think* it's invisible now...can you see it in the pics? Here's a close(ish)-up.

Now, there are not a lot of things that I hate more than binding off...it's so tedious! One thing I hate more is ripping out a bind-off, putting the stitches back on the needle, and redoing the bind-off. But I did it. The bind off from yesterday was so shoddy-looking that I knew I needed to take the time to fix it. This one looks better, but I do miss the elasticity of the other one!

I'm much happier with the sweater now! I feel like I even look happier with it in the pictures!

Rusted Root

I just finished a Rusted Root, and I can see why it's been such a popular pattern. It's easy to make but not mind-numbing (the lace demands some attention), it doesn't take too long, and the resulting sweater is quite fetching.

I love the puffed sleeves! Before I started I had read much of the Craftster thread on RR, and I saw that many people ended up with sleeves that weren't as puffy as they'd hoped. Personally, I think that the pattern is a little misleading about the puffiness. The picture shows the model with elbows out, so of course the little sleeves are puffed up in that pose.

Even if the pattern wasn't intended to produce much puff, I'd had enough of a glimpse of it and I wanted it! So I did extra increases at the top and extra decreases at the bottom to ensure some puff in my sleeves. Although I accidentally made my sleeves a little longer than I meant to (my row counter doesn't lock and I think the tens digit got off, so I went 10 rows too far), I think they're pretty cute. They could be a little shorter and puffier, but they are certainly adequate.

My "elbows out" pose to encourage puff

My other change to the pattern was with the waist shaping. The pattern (knit from the top down) has some waist decreases, but no increases later on. So I did more decreases (spread out more, based on the Craftster comments), then knit straight for a couple of inches, then did some increases. I think the shaping turned out well. The whole thing could be slightly more fitted, but I think it's pretty good.

I used Cashmere Canapa, which is 60% cotton, 30% cashmere, and 10% hemp. It's like cotton but lighter weight, and a little bit softer. It was easy to work with. I used a little less than 5 skeins (making a size small with bigger sleeves).

Overall I'm happy with the sweater, but if I had to do it over again, I would probably change a couple of things. One is that I would have tried to modify the sleeves a bit more for more puff (and made them shorter). And I wouldn't have made the mistake in the lace pattern that you can probably see...it's a yarn-over hole that's a little larger than the others. I think my non-locking row counter was off by a little more or less than 10, causing me to do something wrong in the lace pattern.

But the other thing I would change is my bind off. I was playing with it, and I decided to use a "decrease bind-off" to make the edge more flexible. It is more flexible than with a standard bind-off, but it looks kind of sloppy and clunky. I don't know if I did something wrong, or if it's due to the fact that I was doing it in pattern (k2, p1), or if it's actually supposed to look like this (I suspect not). But if I were doing it over, I would use a standard bind-off on larger needles.

But really? I think this may be the most wearable thing I've made, so I'm pretty happy with it!



Note: Yes, that's a cat on the stove behind me in the first two pictures. She normally only does that when she's cold. It was very hot today. I can't explain it.