Monday, February 15, 2010

bee sweater

I'm glad I set my Knitting Olympic bar low. Here it is day four and I've barely cast on my designated project. Instead I spent the part of the opening ceremony finishing up the bee sweater.

Bee sweater

I am very pleased with how it turned out. I did have to learn a new technique, for the color changes so they wouldn't have jogs. I chose the technique that has you slip the first stitch of the new color (on what would be the second round of that color) and for the most part it worked. I can only see one place where it doesn't look seamless.

joggy join

My daughter was also pleased and she wore it immediately to a birthday party, then wanted to know if it was out of the laundry yet for school Monday. She also decide that her 100 day collection of 100 things was going to be 100 pieces of yellow and black yarn leftover from her sweater.

But all is not real happy... we had an incident with the panda sweater in which the white yarn felted slightly. And as a result, it is now too short. I was very surprised because a) the yarn is superwash wool (knit picks swish worsted) and b) it was only the white--a color that is notorious for NOT felting. So, since I have extra white, I decided that I'll put off my knitting olympic project and take out the bind off and maybe the ribbing and extend the length of the panda sweater. I know that the yarn won't look the same, and I'm ok with that. I haven't decided if I want to rip back the 1.5 inches of ribbing or just start more ribbing until I get the length I need. I'm leaning toward ripping. It is not too badly felted at the ribbing, and I have enough length to add (would you believe at least 2 inches) that I think that might be best.

2 comments:

Daisy said...

How weird is that--you probably couldn't have made that yarn felt if you'd tried! I wonder if maybe that batch didn't get treated right with whatever they do to superwash. Glad it can be salvaged though--both sweaters are adorable.

Trisha said...

Very cute sweater. I can see why she wants to wear it all the time. And there is nother better than spending all that time knitting something that is so appreciated. Sorry about the panda sweater having some felting problems. Very disappointing. I am glad you have a way to fix it enough that she can still wear it.