rose sweater

I finished my rose sweater that I have been working on since mumble-mumble.  I've posted about it off and on over the last 18 months.  The design was a hybrid between a Cuff to Cuff Sweater from the redheart.com web site and the lace pattern off the bottom of a cowl called the Cosy Neck Warmer that I had played around with trying to make into a shawl.  It would have worked too, except for keeping the back of my arms warm.

I haven't washed or blocked the sweater yet so the lace's points are curled a little and bunched.  The original sweater pattern was for a short-sleeved wrap sweater with the seed stitch going all the way down the front and around the hem.  Well, for me, if I'm going to wear a sweater I want one with long sleeves because the backs of my arms are cold.  And since I have no waist tying anything around my waist looks stupid!  I, also, need more fabric in the front of my garments because of the boobs and belly.  Time to make some design changes!

I wanted a shawl collar so I did some research and figured out how to do some short rows to give the sweater the extra fabric in the collar area. 

The pattern was easy to up-size to my dimensions, however because I wanted a zipper closure I had to pick back about three inches of knitting around the collar and front because the sweater was just too big. 

I re-knitted about a 5 inch square on both sides of the front because I decided I didn't want the seed stitch to come as far down on the front of the sweater as I originally thought. I am hoping when I wash and block it the re-knitted part will blend into the rest of the sweater, as it is noticeable right now.

One of the things I read about knitting kimono style sweaters was the side seams tend to be uneven because of the difference between cast-on edges and bind-off edges.  So I did provisional cast-ons and then the Kitchener Stitch to sew the edges together.  I also did a provisional cast-on for the first sleeve where the pattern tells you to begin because I didn't know how long or wide or how I wanted my sleeves to be finished.

Another decision was whether or not to use the seed stitch all the way down the sleeve.  I think it would look just as good with the seed stitch stopping an inch below the shoulder line.  I debated on using the lace pattern around the cuffs but couldn't figure out how to knit the pattern in the round.  I think that would have looked nice too.

When I got around to inserting the zipper I used Techknitter's technique of making live stitches on the zipper itself.  As you can see one side is installed closer to the zipper's teeth than the other side.  One of the thing I didn't read was how far away you should stay from the zipper teeth.  So the first side I picked up stitches on the outside third of the tape and thought that was too far away (exposing too much tape).  So on the second side I went in to about to about two-thirds of the tape width and liked it much better.  If I ever insert a zipper into another sweater I will get even closer to the zipper.  I used the Kitchener Stitch to attach the sweater to the zipper and then, used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off around the collar.

Oh, and, if you are in Phoenix go to SAS fabric stores that zipper cost me a dollar and you can sometimes buy fabric by the pound!

All and all, I like the fit and I think the sweater will keep me warm as I head back to Kansas for Sister Suzy's graduation.

I hope everybody is having a good day!

Judy