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Thursday, September 25, 2014

Finished!

While waiting for the yarn for a new design project, I attempted to finish a few things.
 © Caro Sheridan
© Caro Sheridan

Basia a la CustomFit.  I was smitten with this sweater before being introduced to the CustomFit pattern generator.  What's more, I actually had the type of yarn it called for, Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool (DK: 45% Wool, 35% Silk, 20% Nylon, 192 yards).

I decided to plug in all the design elements I could into the CustomFit program:
  • Cardigan
  • 3/4 sleeve
  • Wide scoop neck
  • 1" k1p1 ribbing
  • High Hip
  • Reverse stockinette
In order to make this work, I had to swatch for the lace panels and block them.  Then I calculated the number of stockinette stitches I had to remove from the CustomFit pattern to compensate for the space the lace panels would take up.

While knitting, I had to refer to both the Basia pattern and the CustomFit pattern at the same time/all the time. I had three sets of papers in front of me: CustomFit pattern - Basia pattern - Excel spreadsheet of row counts.

It was a little cumbersome at times, and an interesting experiment.


I had wet blocked my swatches, which meant I had to wet block my finished pieces.  I didn't feel like wet blocking the fronts (no good reason, I was skimping).  After sewing it all together, the fronts weren't wide enough.  I had to wet just the fronts and pin them out.  That ought to teach me not to cut corners.


I'm very happy with the finished sweater. It knit up exactly the way I wanted.


The fit is perfect.  I'm loving the CustomFit program and am contemplating my next project.


I just have to sew and weave in ends on my L'Enveloppe knit with Madelinetosh Tosh Chunky (Aran: 100% Merino, 165 yards).  This yarn was a dream to knit with and the color is electric. I put this picture up on Facebook for button votes.  The votes were split between the one on the left and the purple one.  Even though it seemed a  foregone conclusion that I would pick with the purple, I decided to keep looking. In the end, none of them seemed totally perfect.  Thanks to everyone's votes.



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