Mariah March Mulligan

 Here's my Mariah sweater when I made it in 2009.

It took a long time and a lot of redos, and I was very happy to have it done and to be able to wear it.

But when I started wearing it, it became obvious that the sleeves were too long.

I tried to ignore it. I tried to roll the sleeves up

but it just didn't work. It was even worse under the leather jacket that I like to wear over the sweater:

That certainly isn't attractive!

And trying to fold over cuffs under the jacket was ugly and uncomfortable.

So on a Friday night, I gathered up the tools:

Ruler, scissors, crochet hook, dpn in the right size, computer to look up notes on Ravelry and the original pattern on knitty, and a pen and paper for taking notes. (There are two sleeves. It's nicer if they match!)

First thing, I measured how much shorter I needed to make the sleeves (2.5") and how long the cabled ribbing section was (2"). Then I went up 4.5" (2.5+2) from the bottom, counted the rows so I could make the second match, and snipped a strand.

I started to ravel the row I had cut

and put the stitches onto needles.

When the whole row was on needles, I just had the seam to undo. I cut the sewing yarn at the bottom and took it out up to the point where I was going to start knitting again.

Then it was simply a matter of knitting the cable ribbing down from there. I decided to knit the cuff in the round so that I didn't have to sew a seam even though the original sleeve was knit flat. I made sure to decrease the selvage stitches so that the two parts would be the same width.

There is a shift of half a stitch where the knitting changes direction (because I knit the sleeve from the bottom up originally and now was reknitting the cuff from the top down) but you have to look pretty close to notice it. Plus, have you noticed the sweater is black? You can't see anything anyway.

One advantage of how this all worked out is that I could try the sweater on as I went and check the sleeve length.

When I got the perfect length, I cast off. And then repeated the same thing with the other sleeve. (I had a little waking nightmare of shortening the same sleeve twice rather than doing two different sleeves, but I double checked a few times, and didn't make that mistake!)

And I was rewarded with a sweater with sleeves that fit and feel good!

See? They even fit under my jacket:

It feels so much better!

Another March Mulligan completed. Another project saved. Love it!

Finishing Mariah: Part 2 of 2

It is time, at last, for the unveiling of my Mariah. (I know you've been sitting on the edge of your seat...)

I've worn it a couple times now and it is comfortable and warm. It really feels good. It came out a little larger than expected (the original pattern calls for it to fit snugly enough to fit under a jean jacket) but feels so good I'm glad it's not smaller and possibly too tight. And it does fit comfortably under my leather jacket, so I can still get the same look if I want.

Project details:

Started: Nov 2004

Finished: Apr 17, 2009

Pattern: Mariah by Jodi Green, free

Materials cost: black wool, free; green wool, $18.80; zipper, $5.66

A general summary of the construction:

. cable details in the ribbing

. knit from the bottom up with the yoke knit as one piece

. raglan style decreases

. constructed from wool rescued from a damaged Gap sweater

Modifications to the pattern:

. simplified cable pattern on sleeve because I knew I didn't have enough wool

. changed neckline shaping because it was coming out too wide

. completely reworked hood including adding the cable edge because I could not get the pattern instructions to work

. did not knit a 2 stitch garter border along front and hood edge. (My edges are neat enough that I do not need to fold over a facing, thank you very much. Yeah, you can come and check them out--they will stand up to your scrutiny!)

. added a second colour because I did not have enough black

I was not crazy about the way the hood fit at first but am coming to terms with it. I just have to learn to put it on right! I think the neckline was decreased a little too much and, as stated in the previous Mariah post, the hood was made a little too large. However, I am very pleased with how it looks hanging down the back:

and that's most likely how it will be the majority of the time. (And if I'm cold enough to pull the hood on, I am not going to be caring particularly about how I look!)

All in all, I am so happy I made this sweater, and am even happier I finally finished it. If you see me around this spring, chances are you will see me in my Mariah.

[ETA: Mariah won a blue ribbon at the 2009 County Fair (knitted cardigan or coat).]

Finishing Mariah: Part 1 of 2

Get comfortable...this is a long one. So long, in fact, that I split it in two. But I guess a sweater that was 4+ years in the making deserves a long post to finish it up!

This first post will describe the finishing details and the second will give pictures of the final project and sum things up.

In an earlier post I promised some more details about the hood.

I ended up knitting it up to about 4" short of what I thought should be the final length. (That's all in green.) I took the middle 4" from the back (starting on the right side of the above pic) and knit those stitches from back to front. At the end of each row I would knit the last stitch together with one of the stitches from the side. That way I avoided having to sew a seam and it makes for a nice ratio of rows to stitches as you go.

Then, since I wanted the cable to continue around the front edge, I stopped knitting when I got up to the cable and changed directions again. I took the stitches from the cable on the right side and continued to knit it until I met the cable on the left side, now knitting the last stitch with the live stitches from the top panel.

Finally I had to finish the seam where the cable met itself and used the Kitchener stitch. The close up pic shows the seam and I think it came out pretty well. (Of course the black will hide any flaws anyway.)

In general the hood came out a little long and a little boxy. But boxy is better than pointy in my book. And I guess I'd say long is better than too short and tight. So if I had to err I think I leaned the right direction in both cases.

And now for the zipper. You may recall that I was worried about how the zipper would go in. It's very easy for the sweater to get all stretched out during the insertion process. Then the zipper doesn't lie flat but instead travels in valleys and mounds. Not very flattering. It's also easy for the two halves not to be level, or for the zipper not to be centered. In other words, there are lots of ways for a zipper to go wrong, and only one way for it to be right.

Shortly before needing to do the zipper I fortunately read this post from the Yarn Harlot where she succinctly summarizes the steps to putting in a zipper:

1. Baste the fronts together, making sure the top and bottom edges match. This may sound obvious but sometimes these things get overlooked. Especially when you are almost done and just have one measly zipper holding you back.
I went ahead and basted right where the sweater was laid out from blocking.

And use a contrasting yarn that you can easily see to pull out later.

2. Lay one half of the zipper on the sweater matching the edge of the zipper teeth with the center seam you just sewed. Baste with thread, once again in a highly contrasting colour.
(Some people just pin but I am a firm believer in sewing zippers. Zippers shift as you pull out the pins. They can't shift if you've got them sewn down within an inch of their lives.)

3. Zip the other half onto the part that's sewn down and baste it too. See, now the two halves have to match perfectly on your sweater. No shifting or lumps or anything. Perfect!

4. Now you'll have to remove the first basting. Hopefully you've not only used a contrasting yarn, but also a smooth slippery one that will pull out easily without leaving a lot of fuzz etc. (Oh, should I have mentioned that earlier?) Then unzip the two parts of the zipper.

5. Next up is the actual sewing. Some may do it by hand, but unless it's really fine or fancy, I'm going to use my machine.

Here's a little tip that helps whenever you have to sew along an edge: do not place your foot so that it hangs over the edge of your fabric and only half the foot is guiding the fabric. Rather, place it so it can run entirely on top of the fabric and just move your needle position to the side (to the right in the above pic) so that the stitches are close to the edge, but the foot can still move evenly over the fabric. I also used my walking foot which helps a lot.

You can sew from the top or from the bottom, but whatever you do, sew both sides from the same direction. So if the zipper or fabric shift at all, they will shift in the same direction and still match. This will mean, however, that one side is easy to sew with all the fabric to the left of the machine and the other side is not.

Below is the left half being sewn, and you can see most of the fabric is in the way.

However, since my machine has a wide throat (and I know I've bragged about it before, but it really is wonderful) it was not a problem in the slightest.

Once the zipper is sewn in, you can then take out the basting threads. Et voila, a zipper is installed and I could call my Mariah finished!!

The Last Stitch and the Next Step

I have stitched my last stitch on the Mariah. And let's hope for the last time! Although, I did in fact have to do it twice. (Because why would the end of the sweater be any different than the rest of it?)

Tuesday at lunch I had time to sit in my car and work on the last bit of the hood. I even managed to get out the tapestry needle and work the last row in Kitchener stitch to perfectly blend the knitting from one direction into the knitting from the other direction. With a cable in there too, mind. Well, on the first try, "perfectly blend" would not exactly be how I would describe it. But work was calling so I had to put it down.

After work, however, was wholly another thing. So I actually sat there in the parking lot, removed the previous stitching and did again instead of driving home. It worked out a lot better the second time, and I put it in the seat beside me happy enough with the results. And then drove home.

When I got home, I realized that I would have to work in all the ends before I could block it. And I was hoping to block it that night. And the sun was still shining into my car. So, yes, I then sat in my driveway and worked in all the ends that I had.

I'm trying something for the first time with this sweater: I'm not cutting the ends flush with the fabric. I am going to try blocking it first and then cutting all the strings so that they have a chance to reach their "actual" size after blocking. Hopefully this will lead to fewer little ends sticking out, especially in the hood where you're going to see the "wrong side" of the fabric as it hangs down my back. Wool ends don't work out like, let's say, cotton or acrylic, so it might not make any difference, but I thought it was worth a try.

So the next step is blocking. Anyone who has worn wool socks for hiking or used wool blankets for camping knows that wool is quite resistant to getting wet. I remember one camping trip where we had a wool blanket and a cotton sheet rolled up together (sort of like a jellyroll) and they managed, somehow, to get wet in the canoe. (Can't imagine how.) When we unrolled it, the wool was dry, but the cotton sheet was drenched, even though they were rolled up in alternating layers. Quite amazing.

Anyway, all this is to say that when you get wool wet for blocking, you actually have to work at it. I used to block with a spray bottle and finish up by laying a damp towel over the item. That is not really enough. You must soak. You must turn it over. And you must soak some more. And sometimes you've got to weigh it down to keep it under. All this to make sure the water really penetrates the wool.

I soaked my little drowned rat for a good 20 minutes, 10 per side. It was good and wet. The next step is to then drain the tub and gently remove the excess water. You don't want to wring or excessively squeeze. I am guilty of some squeezing, but nothing that's resulted in actual felting. (The BIG danger!)

Next you roll it in a towel (or two) and step on it to soak some more excess water out.

Then lay it out and pin as necessary.

I didn't need to aggressively shape any part of the sweater, but I did pin all down the edges of the right and left fronts so that they would stop curling under. (Please, please stop!) That's where I'll be inserting the zipper so I want it smooth and flat.

I also pinned parts of the hood. That was a little trickier to block because I don't want it to be flat; it needs some 3D shape to it. But I tried my best and pinned it to take out the excessively square shape it had from the way I constructed it. (More on that when you get to see it completed.)

I guess the good news is that if I don't like it, I can always resoak it and reblock it. And, really, why would this stage be any different than the rest of the sweater?

(But I really hope it is.)

Starting Again is Showing Rewards

Just a sneak peak of how my Mariah is coming along. I had to try it on to see how the hood was working out and took a pic while I was at it. From what I can tell, it's going to fit just fine, and the hood looks good hanging down the back as well.

You can see that the top of the hood is not quite done, but that's all I have to do.

I'm not ecstatic about the striping, but I can live with it. I'm not sure what I would have liked more with the materials I had on hand. I hope I can eke out enough black to finish the top of the hood.

You can see I've added a cable along the edge of the hood. I was inspired by a Vogue design (#9 Winter 2008/09--I looked but couldn't find a pic). If I had planned it enough in advance I could have had it continue right from the sleeve, but I didn't.

Alright, enough for now; I did say this was just a sneak peak. (I've got to do some more knitting and get this baby done!)

-christina

Starting Again (and Again) (and Sometimes Again)

Spring...have you read enough blog posts about spring yet? Well, the crocuses coming out to play in my yard have put me in the mood to celebrate it. The long winter is over even as it tries to make me cower under its last dying gasp. Well, I will not cower. We've had too many sunny days lately for that.

What I will do is consider the lesson I can learn from the new life coming from the seeming dead ground. The bulbs that gave up after last year's blooming are back to try again and are making a grand show of it. If the flowers of the field can do it, perhaps I can too.

Specifically, I resurrected a project that I had abandoned (several times) but not completely rejected. There was a hoodie pattern from knitty, the Mariah, that I really liked and which presented itself just as the wool for it appeared as a gift.

First the wool. My co-worker, knowing I had some skill with things knitted, asked me to look at a sweater her puppy had chewed. I told her to bring it in; I could say nothing for sure until I had seen it. She brought in a beautiful Gap cabled sweater in a coal black wool that had a gaping 6 inch diameter hole in the back. No, I'm afraid, I could do nothing for that!

As she balled it up to bitterly throw it into the trash, I asked if I could have it. Perhaps I could use the wool. I didn't want to seem too happy to benefit from her misfortune, but she had no objections and I took it home. My grandmother used to unravel sweaters from thrift stores when they were the colour she was looking for, and I figured I could too. And I did. I even kept a lot of the short fragments that resulted from the now discontinuous back. And I got a lot of wool.

Now for the pattern. I knit up the back and front pieces with no trouble. I knew I had less wool than the pattern called for so I really simplified the cables on the sleeves, changing the complicated design from the pattern to two simple four-stitch cables running side by side up the center of the sleeve [right]. All of these pieces are joined at the yoke and then knit as one.

I ran out of wool when the yoke was pretty much done and still had the whole hood to go. About that time, a few ladies and I took a yarn road trip to the very nice shop, Sheep's Clothing. I brought along a sample of the black wool just in case I could match it.

I couldn't. The very helpful employee, however, did identify it as 3 strands of a type of wool that they had. And they had a rainbow of colours, but not coal black. So I considered my options and bought a colour that I liked and figured I'd just add some wide stripes or have a contrasting hood. Or something.

So I split the ball into thirds, started knitting, and ran out of wool again. Of course it was ridiculous to expect the one little ball to get me very far, especially when divided into thirds, but I didn't think that far ahead. I called the shop to get some more and between their custom ordering system, new computers or something, and I suspect, some general "do it later"ness, it took more than a year to get more wool! Wow. This time I had ordered three balls and had them wind them together for me. That was a lot easier.

I finished the hood. It looked terrible. Really: awful. There was a very strange bump on the back of the hood at the base of the neck. I'm not sure what alien it was for (and I know a number thanks to Star Trek/Wars) but it didn't work for me. So I frogged it back (rip it, rip it) to the neckline and started again, revising the way I interpreted one part of the instructions which was not too clear.

Guess what? Looked terrible again. No better. The whole sweater went into a duffel bag and has emerged only once to have pictures taken when I added it to Ravelry.

Best I can figure I started the sweater in the fall of 2004. I bought the contrasting wool in the spring of '05. I bought the more contrasting wool in June 2007. I've moved, and the sweater has moved with me.

And now, this spring, I have started again. It's been on my mind since I added it to Ravelry. While linking it to the other projects made from the same pattern, I couldn't help but notice that a lot of other people had trouble with the hood directions. Most had given up on the hood and changed it to a simple fold over collar. And then one woman's assessment that the neckline was just way too large made everything click for me. I didn't have to try follow the [apparently flawed] pattern. It wasn't working for me, so try something else.

And I am. First of all I added a lot more decreases to the yoke while lengthening it, so the neckline now fits much better. There was a pause in the work while I considered how to construct a hood, but with some searching in Ravelry posts, I think I have something worked out. I'm about half way up the length of the hood and going strong. I hope that the third time really is the charm because I am getting tired of knitting this same hood!

Serendipitously, soon after restarting this project I read a blog post about the correct way to insert a zipper...that was the next looming (possible) snag in this project. How nice to have nipped the problem in the bud.

Here's to fresh starts in spring! (And wish me some luck, please.)