... isn't ready, by a long shot. The poor thing has had a rocky start in life.
It all began with my continuous effort to turn the best of my stash into honest-to-goodness knitwear. This Rowan Scottish Tweed DK (discontinued a while ago, it goes without saying) was bought a few years ago, bit impulsively, on the basis of its red perfection. The photo above doesn't do it justice. Picture a true red with just a drop of dark blue, enough to make it a deep, rich scarlet. I knew I wanted to make it into a sweater. The shop only had six skeins left, so I took them all home along with a couple of skeins in a dark grey colorway, with no particular plan in mind. (Note to self: not a good idea).
This past fall, I finally decided that it was time to put this yarn to the test. I found a compatible tweed wool in a light grey that could play very nicely with the other two. At last a sweater could be made, if I could figure out a decent way to combine all three colors. I wanted to avoid stripes at least on the torso, so it soon dawned on me that I should knit the body first, in red, and see where my measly 6 skeins took me.
Top-down knitting to the rescue! This technique is really the knitter's friend when one is unsure of how much yarn a project will take. I decided to knit myself a top-down pullover with set-in sleeves. Fortunately for me, Ann Budd's new, excellent book on the subject had just come out, a very worthwhile investment that I recommend highly. It explains every type of top-down sweater in details, give the reader a number of nice finishing touches to contemplate, and includes a few patterns, all very attractive and eminently wearable, in addition to Ann Budd's unique formulas for sweaters in every gauge and size.
The only catch is that the charts cover only a broad variety of gauges, while my swatch gauge inevitably falls somewhere in between two size-categories. I made my own calculations and adjustments and cast on. I knitted the back to the armscye, then picked up stitches at the shoulder and knitted the front to the same point, then started knitting in rounds.
The benefit of this construction, as any knitter knows, is that one can try the sweater in progress to see if it fits properly. The major drawback is that if, by chance, the fit is then discovered to be wrong, one has a lot of frogging to do. In my case, the top halves of both back and front.
My initial cast-on took place around December 1st. On December 8th, I decided that the sweater was going to be much too wide. I frogged and started again with fewer stitches on the needle.
On December 15, a full week later, nagging thoughts compelled me to try the sweater again. Still too roomy. I wasn't crazy about the V-neck I had opted for, anyway. A new frog-fest was in order.
I am now on my third try, more or less cruising along, and just an inch or so from the bottom ribbing, with an improved fit and a round neck opening which will become a (grey) turtleneck collar. With about one and a half skeins of red wool to go, I find myself at a cross in the road. Do I finish the body ribbing in red? Or do I switch to grey stripes for the ribbing? The sleeves will most likely be knit in the lighter grey with a long ribbed section using the darker grey. Any idea of what would make more sense or be more flattering? I am ready to entertain all suggestions, other than "just make it a vest." I need sleeves on this thing. It is going to look a bit sporty, a bit homey, but I am fine with that.
Suggestions, advice and Rav links most welcome, dear readers.
My first thought is since it will have a gray turtle neck collar in gray sleeves, if you did the ribbing in red, the finished piece would resemble a red vest with a gray sweater underneath. I like that idea, unless you want to avoid the vest look. I love that color/yarn and have an old sweater out of it, that is now too boxy. Someday, I am going to redesign it. If I find something on Ravelry, I'll pass it along. Hope your coming holidays are full of joy and family!
Posted by: Barbara | December 23, 2012 at 05:27 AM
Very pretty yarn. I'm finding myself in a similar dilemma, but not with such terrific yarn. I have several colors of Valley Yarns Stockbridge, and I decided to do color blocks--rather like you are. I actually googled "color block sweaters" and then looked at the images. I found something I'd like and I'm adapting it. You can see if there's anything using that method that appeals to you, or you can just get some colored pencils and sketch out your alternatives. If I were making this for me, I might want the gray ribbing because it would give my middle the illusion of being smaller (always a good thing). If I did the gray on the ribbing, I might add a few red stripes to the sleeves.
Posted by: marjorie | December 24, 2012 at 10:12 AM
When you explain the colors, I think of your header image of the log cabin stripes. I think I would do the body all in red and stripe the sleeves. Maybe. Good luck and can't wait to see the finished sweater!
Posted by: Maxine | December 29, 2012 at 01:27 AM