I have completed the crocheted Circle Jacket (see post for Monday 10/2 for pattern link) and am very pleased with it.  In fact I’m tickled with the whole top down process as it was easy to work and enabled me to try the jacket on (many, many times!) to check fit, length, etc.

I am not posting a picture today though, because I still need to decide what I want for ties.  I could make monk’s cord, or braided ties but somehow neither of those are doing it for me.  I’m sure I’ll come up with something before the weekend’s out :)  I also have to decide what I want to do about “killing” the acrylic.  Maybe I only want to maim it?  Anyway, there will be jacket pictures on Monday.  Wow!  I can’t believe I actually made a sweater!

I have started another Coronet, sized down a bit for a child’s head.  I’ll post the changes I made when I’ve worked it through; this one will be in two colors :)  Oh, and because I don’t graft (speaking of Coronet), I have discovered another way of making the join of one piece of fabric to another.  I’m sure it isn’t new, but it works nicely, lies flat, and has a bit of give.  It isn’t invisible but it isn’t terribly intrusive either.  I’ll show you how that works next week too :)

The cable socks proceed slowly, but they do proceed.  I’m about ready to turn the heel on the first one and am still reveling in the look of the cables.  They are gorgeous - if I do say so myself!

And, there’s a new post at The Dye Pot - an experiment in a more traditional dyeing process than I have been using so far.  It’s called Citrine Curry.

I like it :)

Have a great weekend, folks!

...at least I’m planning on it :)  Hopefully, the server nonsense of last week is over (haven’t had any recent problems) and we’ll all actually be able to get together!

To get to the chat room, click on the Knitting Chatters button on the sidebar

Hope to see you there!

Oh what a beautiful morning…pleasant temperatures, glowing sun and brilliant autumn colors all around!  I’m going to have to think about taking a walk up to the park later on.  Bring my camera too!

The jacket is almost finished lacking only a few more ruffle rounds on the body.  That might require a few more rounds on the sleeves as well as when I put it on to check the ruffle last night, I noticed that the sleeves and the body were the same length.  That looked pretty good to my eye so I think I’ll try to maintain it.  I’m really pretty excited about this and can’t wait to have it completed :)

In a comment on Monday’s post (which see for pattern link), Catsmum mentioned the back detailing.  And I realized that the pattern picture doesn’t show it.  That’s a shame because it’s quite nice:

There remains one thing about this jacket that still bothers me a bit.  Things are just a little stiff - as though the fabric had too much body?  The ruffles don’t drape nicely, though they aren’t terrible now.  I know this is a result of crochet itself, being a somewhat bulky technique, and the synthetic yarn which is not blockable in the ordinary sense.

I’m thinking about killing it…

Seriously, I worked up a swatch last night in the same V-stitch/cluster pattern as the jacket (and the same yarn, natch!).  Then I put it in a bowl and poured just-off-the-boil water over it.  Once things had cooled off enough to handle, I squeezed out the water and dried the swatch over-night.  This morning?  It had relaxed considerably and the fabric was much softer and drapier.  My main reason for the experiment was to see if boiling water would melt the yarn.  That would have been overkilling the yarn, heheh… :)  Anyway, I’m pretty encouraged by the results.

I hope to have the finished article to show you on Friday!

Notes:

1.  The Dulaan Kick-off Contest is under way (see the button in the sidebar for information) and participants are off and running!  This would dovetail nicely with Ryan’s Dulaan 10,000 or Bust! (scroll down a bit) contest so have a look at that too, if you haven’t already :)

2.  Chatters is on for tomorrow night - at least I hope it’s on :)  We had an awful time with servers last Thursday and never did get going.  Things seem to have been fixed however, whatever the problem was, and I don’t anticipate anything unusual tomorrow. 

Okay, I’m going back to work on my jacket.  I can’t wait to actually be able to wear this.  I love it already!

I went out to lunch Friday with an old friend.  We sat and caught up and chatted and knit all afternoon and it was so relaxing and such fun.  I got started on these…

This is the exact cable used in Coronet which I just loved.  So I set up the sock so that the 9 stitch braid flowed neatly and naturally from the 3 x 3 ribbing of the cuff and I’m really tickled at how nice it looks - Not that it means anything except that I can count.  Sometimes…  When I’m lucky…

I don’t usually use a cable needle to work cables; I generally find it faster and easier to do without.  However, partly because of the scale of the socks (smaller yarn, smaller needles) and partly because of the yarn itself (lightly twisted, very easy to split) I decided that even if it did slow me down a bit, a cable needle was going to be essential to keep the cables looking crisp and me from pulling my hair out :)  And it’s not too bad!  In the round, the cable pattern consists of 8 rounds and only two of those rounds are cabled.  Anyway, it feels good to have more winter socks on the needle and to know that I am my best resource for warm feet.

I spent most of the weekend, however, working on this:

This is Caron’s Soft Sage Circle Jacket except that it’s, well, it’s blue :)  Marcy was exactly right when she commented to last Friday’s post, speculating that it was a top down sweater.  I wasn’t trying to surprise anyone though.  The surprise was all to me at how cleverly the pattern construction worked and how nicely it was coming together.  Given my history with sweaters, I didn’t want to post until I was sure I had some chance of actually finishing this - and it now seems as though I do.  I have one sleeve complete and all that remains is the other sleeve and the finish to the body ruffle.

I must have a very different body shape than the model in the picture, though.  Where the ruffle on the body of the jacket starts at about mid-hip on her, it starts just below the bust on me.  And while the pattern itself calls for a certain number of repeats of the ruffle rows, there are more repeats than that on the piece in the photo - and there will be many more repeats on my own version.  I anticipate needing a couple more skeins of yarn, but that’s not a problem.

Mostly, I am astonished by the fact that the thing actually fits - and it’s going to look pretty good :)  If I made this again, I would probably extend the armscye another row or two before joining as it is a bit closer than I’m used to.  However, it isn’t tight and doesn’t bind so I’ll leave it as it is because I have the feeling there will be some stretching of the final garment as those ruffles carry a fair amount of weight.  For that same reason, I’m extending the sleeve ruffles only to just above the wrist - bracelet length?  They will look just fine and if they do stretch a bit, they still won’t get in my way.  I do love the look of bell sleeves but for a clumsy ox like me, they’re an accident waiting to happen :)

I also think I’m going to attempt to contrive some sort of tie for the front of the jacket.  THe pattern’s suggested double-button and loop closure would be attractive if it could be kept straight but my experience with this kind of thing is that it never does.  So the front of the garment always looks cock-eyed.

Goodness, crochet goes fast, doesn’t it?

So how was your weekend?