Sunday, October 14, 2007

Halloween Sweater

What's on the needles? I’m attempting to finish a sweater for my daughter to wear for Halloween that will compliment her costume but that she could still use on a daily basis; she’s going to be a fairy princess. I’m starting off with an Elsebeth Lavold pattern, Herdis, but will embellish it a bit with beads. The yarn I’m using is very different from what’s called for in the pattern. I seldom follow a pattern exactly the way it’s written and will try to use yarn from my stash before I resort to shopping. The yarn called for is Elsebeth Lavold’s Silky Wool (65% wool, 35% silk, 100% gorgeous; ~22 sts/4” on 4mm needles) and I’m using Phildar Canelis (67% acrylic, 33% rayon, also gorgeous; ~26 sts/4” on 3mm needles); very different yarns. The Canelis is a discontinued yarn I bought on sale many years ago when they were trying to clear stock (I will buy yarn on sale and figure out what to do with it later). So how did I pull this pattern off?


I did my gauge swatch to determine what tension I was knitting to and then picked a size whose finished dimensions according to my gauge would fit my daughter (stretching it a bit during blocking didn’t hurt either). I’m pleased to say that it has blocked very well.


See the unblocked example below:















See the blocked examples below:


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Francesca!!!

Looks good so far - the Canelis just won't have the same blockablity qualities that wool would have. But it's shinier (I knit with it at some point in the past)!!

Fran said...

Wannietta! Great to hear from you. You're right about it not having the same blocking qualities. In the picture, I show it pinned with blocking wires and yes there is a tiny amount of stretch back when you unpin. That's when you re-pin and bring out the steam iron. I didn't put the iron directly on it because of the texture, but I hovered the steam over it and then there was no stretch back when unpinned. :)