Summer Stripes Boatneck

I finished it awhile ago, but here for your viewing enjoyment is my Sirdar Summer Stripes dk sweater!



My sister and I have a saying.  Well actually we have many, but here's one that I want to share.  You know that certain item of clothing that you always turn to lately?  You just got some adorable new jeans, and even though you wore them to last night's barbecue over at Suzie's, tonight you're going out to dinner with Jane and she wasn't at Suzie's, so you go ahead and wear the same jeans.  These are what we'd call your 5 out of 7 day jeans.  Well this is now my 5 out of 7 day sweater.

Summer Stripes

As I've mentioned, I am a big fan of the UK fiber and design company Sirdar.  For the past few months I've had my eye on their new cotton/acrylic blend Summer Stripes Dk and the Summer Safari design book they have released with it.  There are so many beautiful, modern designs that I knew I could learn from, so on my recent visit to Scottsdale's Knit Happens I decided that purchasing this book was a worthwhile investment to put on my credit card write off as a business expense!


It was a tough choice whether I would start with the Boat-Neck Top with Turnback Cuffs or the V Neck Tank...and the color choice was even more difficult.  Ultimately I went with the Boat-Neck in their color choice, Oasis (312).


I finished the first half within about five days, meticulously choosing which skein to join based on keeping perfectly ordered stripes.  Now on my second half (pictured below), I decided to mix it up a bit, and you can see there is a little "reflection" in the middle where I changed yarns and started backwards with the new skein.  I can say for sure now I think it's more interesting to mix it up when using a self-changing yarn like this than to try and keep perfect order.

Simply Sublime

"...the underside as perfect as the outside..."

-Coco Chanel

Sublime fantasy

     I have been going full speed ahead on my Sublime organic cotton sweater these past few days.  I'm very excited for it to make its public debut in the coming weeks, expecting April highs in the 60's.  I can just see myself strolling the Old Port taking in the sights, Ned on my arm, Loeffler Randall rain boots on my feet...


     The sweater is so close to being done I can taste it!  I thought I'd share a few helpful tips I figured out for myself to solve some small problems that may frequently arise during the process of sewing up a knitted garment.


     I had to attach two flaps on the sides of the hood partway down the neckline...but the hood flaps were longer than the portion of seam it was supposed to match on the neckline.  To solve this problem and similar ones, first figure out which piece is short and which is long.  Rather than counting stitches, I prefer to just match where you know it needs to match, and start sewing it up.  Then you'll have an idea of how much needs to be taken in.

     Then take out all or part of what you have done and just gradually "pucker" the longer side.  In the case above, for the grafting technique, rather than wrapping one stitch, I wrapped a stitch and a half each time.  For a vertical mattress stitch seam, go through only one "bar" instead of two on the side that is too short.  Depending how much needs to be taken in, you could do these things on every stitch, or alternating stitches.  Just keep redoing the seam until it looks great!

Admiring my gentle pucker.

something for myself

     This past week I decided since I was sort of on vacation that I would do something for myself.


     Having just gotten the grasp of how to knit, last April I started my first sweater from a pattern book by Sublime (a division of the UK fiber company Sirdar) using their organic cotton dk yarn, all purchased from Scottsdale's Knit Happens.  I finished knitting all of the pieces in January but have been procrastinating on sewing it up, mainly because until now I didn't learn how to do that.  But with the onset of Spring (which I consider March to be) I really want to start wearing this simply sublime sweater soon.


     I'd also like for the project not to take me an entire year to finish!

Vertical seams like this one
up the middle of the hood take mattress stitch.

As with most things, the hardest part
was getting started.