The Versio Sweater – a body, sleeves, and a change of plans
The weather is (finally) cooling down again here in New York, and it’s starting to feel like fall (again), so I took the opportunity to finish up the sleeves of my Versio sweater.
The pattern is Versio by Ankestrick (here on Ravelry.)
I’m using a 4 different lace weight yarns:
1 skein of Julie Asselin’s “Merletto” – the blue
1 skein of Sweet Georgia’s “Merino Silk Lace” – the red
1 skein of Fiberspates’ “Scrumptious” – the gold
2 skeins of Cascade’s “Forest Hills” – the black
Holding 2 strands of yarn together throughout the entire thing, and knitting it on a US 8 (5.0 mm) needle.
I’m also adding the hood modification that Rililie on Ravelry wrote up.
The pattern is knit top down, seamlessly, and using the contiguous set in sleeve method. I had never head of this method for creating set in sleeves – but I might have fallen a little bit in love.
The armscyes are a little bit deep on me, so it does some funky pulling/puckering under the arm, but not badly enough to make it unwearable.
The striping sequence has evolved a bit during the knitting process.
The original idea was to just use the blue, the gold and the red, working the stripe sequence you see on the yoke, for the entire sweater.
Turns out, I was going to run out of yarn really quickly if I did that – so I added the black, and planned on working the stripe sequence you see in the middle section of the sweater, for the entirety of it.
But I was still probably going to run out of yarn – so I switched to solid black for the bottom portions, and reintroduced the gold for the hems.
I’m a little ambivalent about the project right now.
I like it, but I originally wanted this sweater to fill the role of an easy to throw on – but not boring – works with jeans or a skirt, sweatshirt type sweater, in my self-made wardrobe, and that’s not what this is anymore.
Now, I’m seeing it as more of a sweater to wear with heels and dark wash jeans, still casual, but a piece that needs a little more effort to wear (and not end up being worn being worn by.)
I’ll see how I feel once I add the hood. But this sweater has definitely morphed into a sweater that is different than the one I originally planned.
Which mistakes can you live with?
We all make mistakes. (Obviously.)
And fortunately in knitting, (almost) every mistake is fixable.
(Apart from things like lighting your sweater on fire.)
But that doesn’t mean all mistakes need to be fixed.
I’m not advocating sloppiness,
because there’s no need for that.
But pure perfection is boring,
and usually unattainable.
Wafian has a spot where the boarder is garter instead of i-cord
– when I got distracted for a row.
Eirwen has a couple loose stitches near the beginning
– where the magic loop pulled a yarn over too large.
Izar has a couple stripes completely out of order
– where I forgot what I was doing for a bit.
Tumbling Deco was supposed to have a smooth boarder (like Mrs. Peacock)
– but I didn’t have the blocking wires.
When it comes to mistakes in my knitting my thinking is…
: if it’s structural, fix it.
(an incorrect stitch count, an off-center repeat, funky shaping, extra rows)
: if it’s cosmetic, it can stay – or get fixed – usually depending on my mood.
(a misordered stripe sequence, a different blocking method, an incorrect stitch that your eye glosses over)
So, which mistakes can you live with?
sweater weather, rainstorms, and a sassy-tinkerbell-mug
Each Wednesday I post little snippets about the projects I’m working on.
You can see all of the Wednesday posts here.
I cut the waistband & hem band to the skirt I was working on last week, while catching up on podcasts. Then attached them Thursday morning, before wearing it for the rest of the day. You can see the finished skirt in last Friday’s Self-Made Wardrobe update.
The solo lace shawl of my needles is getting worked on, but I need to remember to set myself time to work on it. Otherwise I’d just keep knitting my sweater.
I did end up running out of the black Forest Hills yarn I’m using in my Versio sweater, and had to pick up another ball. But this time I’m remembering to wind it before trying to knit from both ends of the skein.
The beginning of fall mean the return of sweater knitting weather (yay!) and drinking tea from my sassy-Tinkerbell-mug. Although August is throwing us a swelter-y farewell, complete with rainstorms and humidity.
I love the fabric you get when you hold multiple strands of lace weight yarn together. The fabric is soft and supple, but you can use a larger needle than you normally would for lace weight yarns. It’s a technique I call for in the Xylia, Yuki, and Idril, to create interesting stockinette shawl that don’t take an age and a half to knit.
