Boxy Tee Together

I know I have been doing and showing a lot of quilting lately, but I have picked up a knitting needle now and then.

I finished the knitting of my Boxy Tee and then blocked the pieces so they would be easier to sew together.

I was pretty disappointed to see that the purple bled. It's especially noticeable on the pink and light blue:

It was one of the yarns purchased as yarn and not harvested from a second hand sweater. I didn't even think about it and left the pieces soaking in a pot for a long time. If I had been worried about it, I could have soaked them flat instead of crumpled up, would have removed them quicker and could have used a colour catcher sheet. I'm going to block it again after it's seamed and the trim is on so we'll see if I can remove any of the excess dye. I don't hold too much hope though.

Then the pieces sat for quite a while. 1. I got absorbed into some quilting projects, and 2. I wanted to ponder which side to consider the "right side" and decide how to sew it together.

Here's a comparison--front:

 back:

The colours blend better on the "purl" side, but I have a hard time not thinking of it as the "wrong" side (which it usually is). It's hard to enjoy wearing something if your brain is constantly screaming, "It's inside out!" Also, the fabric tends to balloon out in the direction of the purl side which affects how it hangs on the body. With the knit side out, the garment tends to cling (in a good way). With the purl side out, it tends to pouf away from the body. This does not conform to traditional ideas of what "flatters" you, but maybe I shouldn't conform to the idea that skinnier is always better anyway.

In the end, I decided to try a reversible garment. I'll probably only wear it the one way (purl side out) but I'll feel better knowing I could wear it the other way. :)

The pattern has you pick up stitches along the edge of both pieces to be seamed together and then do a three-needle bind off to attach them. I decided this would look a lot like a single crochet seam and went with that instead.

The crochet seam has the added advantage that it looks the same on both sides since the selvage stitches (or seam allowance) are encased in the crochet stitches.

At first I was crocheting through just the selvage stitch (I slip the first stitch, so you get a nice chain up the side) but found that it wasn't overly neat. For one thing, sometimes I wasn't consistent about it, so I'd get odd spots like the one highlighted below:

And in other places, there were large gaps because the selvage stitches were loose. By the end, I was crocheting into the first proper stitch and it was looking better.

(Although in these pictures it is obvious it still needs a good blocking.)

The crochet pick up also gave me a place to hid all the ends.

With all the colour changes, there were a lot! I just pulled them through the crochet loops for about an inch and cut them off. The crochet is quite tight and doesn't stretch much so they are quite secure. I worked in the ends on each seam as I finished it so I didn't get stuck with a mountain of them all at once.

While reading through project notes of this pattern on Ravelry, I noticed another knitter used single crochet for the seams, but she didn't like that the neat "V"s of the stitch sat to the side and weren't visible from the front. In the picture below, I have folded the garment so the Vs face forward (nice and pretty). If you look at the picture of the seam above (the one after the knit/purl comparisons), you can see that when the garment is flat, you see the side of the stitch, not the top.

Although, I would love a nice neat row of Vs showing as well, I am not bothered by this. The  main intent of the pattern is to get a strong contrasting line of stitching on the seam, and you get that. What I don't like as much is the way it looks on the other side. It's more obvious in some places than others, but horizontal bars of red are visible and it doesn't look great.

I am planning to single crochet along those bars so that this side with have a "mock seam" visible and will have the same look as the pattern intended.

Once the seams were sewn, I could work on the armhole, neck, and hem trim. It was an interesting garter hem with a braid detail and then an i-cord bind off. (Talk about finishing a run with a marathon! It's been a lot of knitting to "finish" the garment!)

And as an added bonus, doing a four colour braid results in a big tangled mess of yarn.

For every stitch, you twist the working yarn. It's done in the same direction across the whole row, so you get a lot of built up twist. (Many times, the trim is done over two rows, twisting the opposite way on the second row which straightens out your yarn.) But there was only one row of twisting in this case. The good news was that I could cut three of those colours as soon as it was done and untangle the yarn.

The  multi-colour trim also left me a lot more ends to work in!

I couldn't work these into the crochet stitches if I wanted to keep the garment reversible. I tried to hide a lot of them under the twisted stitches of the braid, but now it looks like the braid isn't tight enough to hold them in place; a lot of them are showing their ends already. I may have to anchor them down better.

For the bottom hem, I could pick up the stitches from the provisional cast on that the front and back pieces were started from. When I was completely done the hem, I realized I had made one mistake:

On the first row, I knit when I should have purled, and it put the "two-colour" row of garter on the stockinette side. I would have rather had it on the reverse side with the rest of the two-colour rows.

Then the stockinette side would have had two neat rows of garter in each colour and the reverse side would have had alternating two-colour and single colour ridges.

Oh well. It's a tiny thing and likely never to be noticed by anyone. It would have made me happy if it was the other way though.

As I put the garment together, I was sure it was going to be much shorter than I wanted it to be. I figured it would just hit my waist band. But when I tried it on, it was fine. Not quite as long as my impression from knitting the back and front pieces (since they're only half the width, they give a very long and skinny impression), but comfortably long.

This was part of the reason I made the hem longer than indicated in the pattern. (I added an extra garter ridge in each colour.) It did help with the length, but I also think it is in better proportion to the whole garment now too. A skinny trim is ok on an armhole or neckband, but I generally prefer something with more "heft" (in visual appearance, if not in weight) for the hem.

All I have left to do is finish working in the ends of the neckband and give it another dunk to block it. I am thinking about stretching it a little more vertically when I dry it this time. I'll measure my current gauge and see how much different it actually turns out.

Then and Now: Vogue Vintage Flashback

This here

is a picture of woman pretty pleased with herself. And the blouse she's wearing.

You may recall, this was a "flashback" pattern from Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 1984. (Original pattern from 1948.)  I was inspired to make it as part of a then-and-now knit-along in the Ravelry Vogue Knitters group.

In mid May, I (finally) had all of the pieces knit. I blocked them all before seaming.

I usually don't bother and just block everything afterwards. But the experts say that you get the best results blocking the pieces first and I decided to listen to them. The edges of the pieces were very curly and I wanted to make the seaming easier. It also helped to fold over the hems on the cuffs and collars so they wanted to stay in place while I sewed them down.

You can see I didn't work in any of the ends before blocking either. I decided to wait to take care of them until after it was sewn together. It turned out to be a very good decision. I had kept all of the ends to the edges, and it was simple to work them into the seam allowances after the seams were sewn. I was worried about being able to anchor the slippery white silk but it wasn't an issue at all working them into the seam allowances.

The first seam was to sew the back and front sections to the yoke.

Since I was sewing the ends of one piece to the sides of the other, I couldn't just match stitch for stitch. Despite having to adjust the gauge and stitch count, the length of the pieces I was sewing together were the same. (Yay!) I used safety pins to match centers and quarters and added a few more.

I made sure the yoke began and ended so that a garter ridge ran right along the top of the front and back pieces, making it consistent with the rest of the stitch pattern. (Each tan stripe is edged with a garter ridge.) You can see I also  matched up the white stripe from the front and from the sleeve. (The pattern planned for that so that's not all me, but it is nice when it works!)

The next seam was the long underarm and side seam, done in one shot. I normally sew with the same yarn that the piece is knit with, but for this one I used thread instead. I wanted to minimize bulk. It didn't feel right to use regular sewing thread, though, so I used top stitching thread which is thicker.

Next was the hem around the bottom:

It's so neat and simple!

The pattern said to fold over four stitches, but I just curled a little bit that seamed to naturally want to roll, closer to two stitches. I sewed it down with the thread, just making sure that it stayed even and straight all the way around.

Next the cuffs. The reworking of the pattern in 1984 changed the cuffs so the stripe pattern was different from the original. I modified the cuffs and from what I can see on the picture, it matches the original. It just seemed a lot more balanced and in tune with the rest of the sweater to arrange them as shown.

The sleeves are gathered into the cuffs quite a bit, so I ran a length of the tan yarn around the sleeve bottom. I used it to gather the sleeve width to match the length of the cuff and tied a knot to keep it there. I intended to pull it out after I sewed on the cuff, but it wouldn't come out when I tried. Apparently I sewed through it in places. That's alright, it will just help keep it from stretching out.

The cuffs had a knitted hem. The pattern had the hem the same width as the cuff, but I followed Elizabeth Zimmermann's formula of making the part you turn under about 10% smaller. I sewed it down just above the white stripe. Putting all the extra bulk under the white stripe camouflages the extra thickness of the hem.

Next was the collar. I modified the hem so I could knit it in one piece.

Under side of the collar.

The pattern had you knit the hem for the long edge, cast off, and then pick up stitches on the short sides to knit the hem there. I picked up the stitches before starting the hem and knit the long side and short sides all at once. I decreased stitches at the corners so it would lie flat.

I really wondered how to sew it to the body. I didn't want to do a regular seam where you put right sides together and the flip it inside right--too much bulk in the seam and I didn't think the collar would fold over neatly.

Then I noticed that the top edge of the collar (the cast on edge) was neat enough to show to the outside. So I laid the collar on the body in position and just sewed the top edges together on the back side. I made sure the collar rode a little higher than the body and kept all the stitches on the back.

And it turns out that once it was on, the weight of the blouse pulled the collar to the inside and produced a nice folded edge. (Except at the front and back center, as you'll see.)

The back includes a slit finished with buttons. The pattern called for the entire back seam to be open and fastened with three buttons. This seemed very open to me, so I sewed the seam shut from the bottom to half way, and put the buttons on the top half.

The ends of the opening are finished with crocheted slip stitch, including crocheted loops for the buttons. The buttons were from my button jars and definitely do not look brand new. Let's call that a design choice to reinforce the vintage look of the garment. :)

It looks like the back of the collar isn't quite centered after the buttons were fastened. We'll see if I think that's worth fixing. (I doubt it.)

And finally, here's the entire piece:

It came out exactly as I wanted. It's comfortable to wear and I love the fit.

There's flexibility in the fit of the shoulders since there is no set shoulder seam. Despite the all-in-one construction of the yoke and sleeves, there is shaping in the underarm so that it's not just blocks of rectangles put together. (Always a recipe for weird bulk under the arms.) I was happy to have a pattern to tell me how to do it because there was some unusual geometry going on.

The waist shaping worked out well too. It was hard to know for sure when the pieces were knit side to side, but again, the pattern did not steer me wrong.

To cap off this wonderful finish, I found two brown pants at Goodwill in the last couple of weeks that will match!

Project Stats
Started: 15 Mar '19
Finished: 20 May '19
Pattern: #42 Close-Fitting, Striped Pullover with 3/4-Length Sleeves & Collar from Vogue Knitting (Spring/Summer 1984)
Materials: Raveled Linen/Rayon from Coldwater Creek shrug; ColourMart Silk 36/120nm DK wt.
Ravelry project page: Striped blouse with collar