Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Knit in Chunks....

Oh my gosh, you could definitely say that.

This is an example of my "tweaking"a pattern.

I discovered Miss Twiss' pattern Knit in Chunks on Ravelry. I did not feel that I had enough yarn to create all the cables on the body of the sweater. I decided that I wanted a different cable on the yoke. Well that was easy enough to switch. I used a Saxon Braid cable. I knit the yoke first, as the pattern states. Then I used a garter stitch for the upper yoke/neckline. So far so good...(smile) Then I picked up stitches for the sleeve and body of the sweater. Of course by this time I had completely abandoned Miss Twiss pattern guidelines. I started to plan for the sleeves and holding stitches aside for them. Ah yes and that's when I made the discovery. It was too small...(sigh).

I had to frog everything except the cabled yoke. I simply had to undo the bind off edge and make the yoke longer. I did this and re-knit the upper yoke, again in garter stitch. This time I made sure to pick up every stitch for the body. I am having to lengthen the body of the sweater before I join the sides. The underarm cuts. I have had more yarn ends on this project than I have had on any other. Since I am lengthening the body in three sections I have had to have three balls of yarn going at one time. Then with having to add more to the cabled yoke, and finding that the yarn has had weak spots and has actually broken while knitting. This requires me to either tie the yarn together, something I don't like doing, or just have a new tail going. I finally got so wrapped up in all these loose ends that I had to weave in some of the ends. Right now I seem to be doing fairly well on it. Maybe I will actually be able to wear this while it's still cold (wink).