Skip to main content

A pleasant surprise

I cast off the body of my Lettuce on the plane home from New Zealand. It’s top down and I tried it on for length, but I was really worried it was just a smidge too short. Then I knit the first sleeve. I was confident that it was the right length, because I tried it on and it was fine. On Sunday we went to the pub and drank beer and I finished the second sleeve and knit the collar. After five hours at the pub. I went home and cast off the collar. I tried it on and it was just wrong. The sleeves were three quarter length, which I can live with but don’t love and the body was a tiny bit shorter than before. I guess knitting the collar had pulled everything up a bit. I said to Leon that I would have to pull out the bottom and knit it down, but he suggested I block it first and see how it comes out.




So I did. And it is PERFECT. The length is absolutely spot on. I love the v neck, which is not what the pattern called for, and I knit the ribbing until I decided to cast off, which was not exactly scientific. If I had got the length right preblocking, it would have ended up ridiculously long. I guess I got lucky this time.

I cast this off and Sunday and have already worn it twice. The Stranded in Oz Yarn came out so wonderfully, both in colour and in texture. I’m really glad I revisited this pattern. After all the drama I went through with it last time, this time the knitting was fun, easy and satisfying and the results make me so happy I’m a knitter.

Comments

  1. it's amazing plane knitting! I'm glad this one worked out - you can see why i've knitted two of them! (and will quite happily do another in a few years time)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linky Wednesday - the one with the pause

In meditation it's said that the pause between the in breath and the out breath is a gap, a space to rest. Well, I'm in that in-between space for reading, listening and knitting. This is a random photo of a highlight of my week - I filled up my lolly jar. These are just supermarket party mix. During the lockdowns, we sources a great pick-and-mix delivery service, but at some point they started sending from the UK, which is a bit silly. Rachey messaged me a new one she found, and I impulsed purchased a kilo of mixed lollies, and then she sent me a link to the biggest lolly shop in Melbourne, which also delivers sweets by the kilogram, so i think I'm sorted for the rest of the year!  In reading I've just finished  The Beckoning Lady   by Margery Allingham . It's the second last book in the Summer of Mystery, and I have to admit, having now read nine Margery Allingham books, that they are OK. I wouldn't have read them if they were not connected to this club, but on...

Why Andrea Mowry, why? (A rant and a rather nice finished object)

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit  Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat.  The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

Geogradiant MKAL Part 1 - that was unexpected (spoilers)

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises.