(F)inally (O)ver!!

{Rant}

If you've had the misfortune of being in my knitting group, then you've already heard me whine (repeatedly) about how much I hate this yarn. I didn't use the specified yarn so I couldn't really tell you if it handles better. I used moda dea spellbound (I think you were right, Niki, but I couldn't remember the name for sure when you asked).

I hated this yarn when I had the superior "skeins" of it, but then by cruel luck the last two skeins were truly deficient. (Two, out of five. I am definitely not impressed at their quality control). This is ribbon yarn made of fluffy threads held together by a few rows of machine sewing... Finicky and easy to poke through with the needles = slow to knit. Annoying, but at least it looked good. The deficient skeins had extremely inconsistent stitching so that the outside edges of the ribbon were feathered throughout. In a few short sections it was actually decent enough to get my hopes up that it might finally return to normal. Ha. Ha. The effect of the feathering completely changed the feel of the knitted fabric and also added a significant halo. In a few discrete places the normal skeins had this effect and it bugged me. You know, before I had to deal with entire skeins of this effect.

Anyways, I made this cute cowlneck and I wondered at the shaping while I was making it. Now I know that I was right to wonder. The back is shaped normally, and narrows at the waist and then widens up to the armpit. In the front it is prepped for the cowl starting from the bottom up, and it doesn't narrow for the waist. It is slowly increased up to the armpit, and then rapidly increased up to the neckline to finish up the cowl.

A shirt needs shaping on both sides to be flattering under normal circumstances (except in certain cases of style & drape), and thick yarn really demands this shaping. I like this shirt. But I could have liked it a lot more. It looks good on me but it does make me appear a fair bit thicker than I actually am.

When I think about how much I hated this yarn every step of the way, and how I actually had to do a fair bit of math to make up the difference in the suggested yarn's row gauge and my "yarn"'s row gauge... yeah, I'm ready for the next project!

WITH REAL YARN.

{/Rant}

On to the pictures. Woo!


Mmmmmmmmmm, don't you wish you had a strawberry cheesecake klondike bar? I stole this from the husband and then forced him to take my pictures. Hehehe, yeah I'm evil.


I'm eating the klondike bar in this pic too, you just can't see it. :^>

I've been working on this since at least November. I feel freeeeeeeeee!