13june2014
this won 2nd prize at the 2014 KWKG’s adjudicated show in the category Anything but an Accessory - Guru! Kate Atherley’s comments: “Stunningly beautiful. The fit is beautiful. Really smart choice to use intarsia. Love the cowl. Great use of the yarn. Artful in its simplicity.” See more pictures of the entries here.

15may2014
finished this on the weekend. after looking at a few tutorials for finishing with a folded hem, I ended up kitchenering the live stitches to the purl side. matches the cast on hem perfectly, and is very stretchy because there’s no bind off edge. I ended up using almost all 14 balls. if I had an extra ball, I might have been a bit more OCD with the colour matching, but I didn’t, and wanted to avoid buying more, so I just try to let it go. the arm holes could be stretchier, I suspect that it is mostly the edges of the armholes causing an issue, may have been less of a problem if I didn’t do a slip stitch edge on one side? mostly I’m very very happy with it, and I kind of want to make another one! now I need to wait till fall to wear it, because it is so damn warm!

I think I want to make another one..

24apr2014
sleeve caps!! some how made the armhole a bit longer than I’d like and wasn’t sure how to make set in sleeves. found an online tutorial, and then went to Barbara Walker’s knitting from the top down. her instructions made everything so simple! ended up picking up 1 stitch for every 2 rows. I think I prefer the non slipped stitch edge for this, and in the future, I’d do the increases 3 stitches from the edge for less confusion. very excited about the sleeves, and I’ve used a bit of every of the 14 balls now.

16apr2014
too lazy to drop and fix, so one side had slipped stitches and the other doesn’t. will see which side is easier when I pick up for sleeves. finally working on body, now on the hip increases, and I’m feeling like maybe I should have been more OCD about changing the colours around. but the intarsia is annoying enough that I don’t even want to rip back one row, so going to (mostly) let it go and see how things are.

19mar2014
hmm.. possibly should be slipping edge stitches instead of knitting them, since I plan to pick up rather than seam, will drop and fix, if it isn’t too messy.

16mar2014

49 stitches each side at bottom of neck. need to cast on 6 stitches on each side.

26feb2014

note to self: use 3 colour ways of noro in the future, if you don’t want the columns to match up.

20feb2014

not going to be a custom fit sweater after all :(. going to wait till they’ve got a few more bugs sorted out. there’s a couple of bugs that they can’t pin down with regard to my size (I guess I’m more oddly shape than I thought?), so I think I’m going to give them a bit more time before trying out a pattern. at least during the process I got measurements that were useful!

back to top down, going to try a cowl neck, set in sleeves and intarsia. looking at idlewood for the inspiration for the cowl neck. using gauge for 4.5mm needles (4.6 st, 6.2 rows per inch).

24dec2013

generated the pattern and may try the bottom up seamless instructions, which will let me knit the sleeves top down, and sleeves are the part I care about adjust more. bottom up is going to give me a bit more flexibility for the neck as well, which I’m thinking of converting to a turtle neck.

22dec2013

going to try a custom fit sweater. will likely convert to top down and in the round. because I’m stubborn like that.

pre wash
4.5mm needles
4 3/4” wide, 22 stitches -> 4 3/4”
5” high, 31 rows -> 5”

4mm needles
6.5” wide, 31 stitches -> 6.5”
2 3/4”, 18 rows -> 2 3/4”