Finished! Chevron Baby Sweater

I'm sure you will agree, it turned out even better than I imagined!!!


The buttons are not the exact yellow, but it was the best I could do with the local resources available.

The pattern was loosely based on the Last Minute Knitted Gifts Placket-Neck Baby Sweater. Very loosely based... I had to adjust stitch counts for the color-work and steeks, and obviously, do the button bands and whatnot. While it took me almost exactly 2 months to knit this project, it was fun. I love watching a color-work pattern develop. I used the Classic Elite Liberty Wool, a superwash, that I used on the Toy-Box monster finished in October. I really really like that yarn! It's smooshy and soft and the colors are nice. I used 7803 Slate and 7850 Gold.

Front:


Back:


Raglan Detail:


Inside Floats:


This was the worst part- tacking down the steek along the button-band.


And since I was feeling like an over-achiever, I made a card to go with it.

Steeking Show-Off

Last week I had to send off the video card from my desktop computer to be repaired under warranty. Of course, it's the week where Mr. TEK finally finished classes and we were going to play so much Civ 5 and Diablo 2. My laptop couldn't handle Civ, so I didn't bother with the install, I tried D2, but it was too jumpy and laggy, and that can cause problems in game. So no video games for me. Instead I knit, and steeked, and knit some more.

Let's start with the steek. 

Here is the sweater after all the knitting was done, before starting the steek: 

I'm sewing! 

Sewing is done, getting ready for the hard part! 

Cutting! (this is the sweaty part)

Whew! Done!


Now the sleeves. I didn't know the right way do do the raglan sleeves in grey, while continuing the pattern, so I just made it up. Since I knew I'd be sewing anyway, I just sewed 2 rows up the raglan line, anchoring the loose yellow carries so I could cut them out and have an open sleeve. It looks okay, hopefully it will hold up on an infant or two! 

And for the final WIP photo I've got one side of the button-band done and I'm working on the second. Currently, I've got all that knitting and weaving in done, I'm just working on tacking down the flap from the steek along the button-band. It's slow and frustrating. I couldn't seem to find a good tutorial of how to do a blanket stitch (as I had seen on other projects) without having it show in the front. So I made something up. It isn't likely to be pretty on the inside, but it won't show on the outside. 

Since I've started showing my different photography set-ups, I had a rather interesting one for the final WIP shoot. 

This was taken in our bedroom because we have heavy shades that block most light. I clamped my background fabric to the headboard of the bed, and propped up a piece of white foamboard to act as a reflector. I have these two shoplights that are awesome, but I needed to diffuse their harsh brightness. I just used a couple of strips of white cotton fabric and some safety pins. Easy-peasy! 

The reason I needed to block any daylight from the room is that it can make the white balance on my camera act kinda wonky, and I'm not great at figuring out how to adjust it properly. Too many options! 

I am a Curly Girl

And I am darned proud of it! I had a DevaCut and I LOVE it. Seriously. It is the best thing that has ever happened to my hair. It's soft and not crunchy, curly without frizz, and it just feels good. I've gone low-poo, using CurlyGirl Low-Poo shampoo twice a week. It's kinda weird not shampooing. The best part is that the stylist (Marni is amazing!) showed me how to style it so I could recreate her genius at home. And guess what- It works!!!!!!!



I can't tell you how happy I am with this cut!

Charting

I love to knit by chart. It's just cleaner and I really get a feel for what my project is supposed to look like. However, last night I gave myself a headache creating a chart for the raglan decreases for the Chevron Baby Sweater. The chart turned out well, but that was a LOT of excel, even for me!

Want to see it? Flickr smooshed it, but you can still get the idea.

If you want to get a copy of this chart, just drop me a line, either email or comments, and I'll see what I can do. I do not want to violate copyright law, and while I think my version is different enough from the pattern it is based on, I am not 100% certain.

The knitting is going well. I think I might have made a "mistake" that will make the steeking and picking up for the button band a little more difficult. It's not really a mistake, but I'm not sure what else to call it. I should have knit the 7 stitch section where the steek is going to be in stockinette in the seed stitch hem. I don't think it's a huge deal, and I am not about to start it over to change it.