Blogged here along with some tips for a visit to New Orleans!

Dayana Knits Facebook album for sharing

30May2013: All the pictures with house backgrounds were taken in the French Quarter, New Orleans. Unfortunately, all the beautiful iron-work balconies are always on the 2nd or 3rd level, so I had to make do with doors. As you can see, I was really torn about what photos to show, so I really overdid it. If you have any suggestions for which should be the “square-sized” headliner photo, bring them on!

20May2013: A nice simple knit to highlight a sock yarn. Any sock yarn will do, but THIS ONE, was really great to work with. As you may know, I don’t really like variegated or self-stripers. This colorway is more subtle in its striping, but it certainly does it.

If Rowan decided to come out with this amazing base (Wool: 45%, Kid Mohair: 20%, Silk: 10%, Polyamide: 25%) in solids or tonals, I’d be sold!

If I were them, I’d call it Rowan Pop Art.

Hey -- I kind of am them! I’m a Rowan Ambassador, LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN.

My row gauge was obviously too short. The way the pattern works is to simply cycle colors starting with 11 rows A, 3 rows B, and increasing or decreasing by one row for each stripe. So, at 7A/7B, I kept going for another repeat because it looked short. But in retrospect, I could have done 2 more full repeats for the length I wanted.

Instead, I had to repeat the 11 black, 3 purples part 3 times, annoyingly using much more Cascade than Fine Art. I hate having leftovers, argh!!

It fits rather well, not TOO see-through. I increased more than every 18 rows, brought it to every 8 or 10 towards the hips. It’s still pretty snug. My only issue with the fit would be that the underarms are too close to the skin. I’m a sweater. In a sweater? Yes yes, I believe this will get dirty quite quickly each time. But, hopefully because this is all sock yarn, the tee will hold up to washing rather well. =) I’ll tell all soon, because I’ll be wearing this to a photo shoot in sunny and hot late May New Orleans!

HEM MODS: For the very comfortable 1x1 ribbed sleeve hem, I kept the sleeve stitches live (instead of casting off), picked them up and cast-on the number of underarm stitches cast-off in the body +2 (that was 6 for me), and then I ribbed 5 rows. Use a stretchy, but not too stretchy bind-off. For the folded body hem I did my typical trick of decreasing every 7 or 8 stitches on the 2nd row after the purl fold line.

Cast-on right away, without even swatching!

The Rowan Fine Art is SO SMOOTH through the hands and on the needle. And yet, super soft and quite strong. What magic is this?

IntSweMoDo2013 #5