Theresa: The End

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Audrey project. I should have done this a long time ago, but now it's finally time to bring Audrey to a graceful end. I will maintain the archives for anyone who wishes to use them as reference but there the knit-a-long is officially over at this point.

It was a pleasure to have everyone here. I think this blog really helped to start a trend. I hope I'll be able to do something like this again in the future.

Katarina: Belated photos

All right, I did it! I finished it early summer, but have simply not gotten around to publishing any phots until now.
I'm not completely content with the result, though. It ended up too big and the yarn pills qiute a lot (yes, I used Calmer). And although it is stretchy, it just stretches and then stays that way. Hm. I might frog it.

AmySS: Amy in Audrey

Yay! I'm so happy to be finished. This was by far the most challenging project I've worked on, all because of those silly darts. But the finished product is worth it, it garnered many oohs and aahs at the LYS stitch n bitch this week. Thanks to everyone who posted their progress and hints here, it was a huge help to be able to look through the archives to see what you all had done.

Lyn:

I've finished, after a concentrated spell of knitting while watching tv. I'm the model in the pic but Audrey is in the mail to my daughter Audrey who has longer arms and is less than half my age. She wanted the neckline to be around the shoulders. I made the medium size with 20 repeats of the lace pattern. Thanks to everyone for the helpful info. The colour is Calmer and is a touch greener than it appears on my screen. It is a very gentle colour and quite lovely.

AmySS: Calling All Size Large Knitters

I've finally completed the body and sleeves, sewed everything together, and have knitted 21 lace repeats. I tried searching the archives but couldn't find what I was looking for---can anyone who knit the size large tell me how many repeats they used?

SusanB: Audrey in Flamingo

Yes, I *always* wear Audrey when reading my daughter Disney princess stories at bedtime! ;-) As much as I hated the decreases in the pattern, I really do love the finished product. It was all worth it in the end. I think the sweater is a bit distracting to my husband, as every single photo he took outside was awful, and when I made him take a few more photos inside tonight he was only marginally better. Still, he loves the sweater and as you can see we had a good laugh!

Katarina: Photos

Ok, I think I got a hang of it now. I'll start with a photo of my nice little Calmer yarn pile

Here's a photo of the finished back, unblocked

And here's a detail of the sleeve decrease

Left side decreases

Left side increases

Katarina: A late joiner

I've been wanting to knit Audrey since I bought mag 35 in May last year, but Calmer is quite expensive here in Sweden, so I did't really feel like I could afford it.
Anyway, since I have the best friends ever, I got a gift certificate for the store in Stockholm that carries Rowan on my birthday in February! So I went a-shopping!
I decided on shade 464 because it looked like a nice spring-time greenish colour. When I saw it in proper daylight I was horrified! It's yellow! Me, wearing yellow!? Get out of here!
However, I think I've calmed down and decided it's not yellow. It's greenish-yellow. So there!

I've finished back and front, and with help from all you girls, I got through that without tears. I'm almost finished with first sleeve and it looks good, but it's awfully long!? But I suppose it has too be since it reaches over the shoulder...?

I wasn't able to upload any photos, I'll give it another try later. You can see some photos on my blog:
http://katarinawiberg.blogdrive.com

AmySS: Better Late Than Never

This time last year I was watching everyone knitting their Audreys (Audries?) and drooling jealously---I was four months pregnant and knitting a tight-fitting sweater for my post-pregnant body was the farthest thing from my mind. But now I've started! And stopped! And started again. These decreases and increases are killers.

Last night I finished knitting the back and stopped right after the last set of increases. I think something funky is going on, and before I knit anymore I thought I'd run it by everyone here (if there is anyone still here).

Here's my photo: the first shot is the decreases at the bottom of the sweater (size large), and the top photo is the increases.

My dilemma(s): in the top photo at the #1, you can see the first decrease, which left me with a single column of purl stitches. At the #2, you can see where my last set of decreases left me with a column of three knit stitches. And all of this has led to my having at #3 (starting at the panel of three knit stitches and going to the left), k3, p2, k2, p2, k2, p1, k2.

Is this incorrect? I'm all about ripping it back and starting over with the decreases if I need to, but I think my fear is that I'll do it all over again the same way. I don't think I can tell where exactly I made my mistake. Can anyone else see where I went wrong? (If it's difficult to see, you can check out a larger photo over at my blog).

Ara: Help! I'm Stuck!

Months ago, I fouled up the back piece of my Audrey, and in frustration, stashed it away so I wouldn't have to think about it. :( Now, I really want to get her done, and I think it will be best to rip the back section and start anew. Question: what's the best way to reuse Calmer once ripped? I've ripped and straightened wool yarn before, but never a yarn with synethetic fibers. Any thoughts?

Theresa: Moment of Truth

Audrey in Blue

Well folks, I no longer have to feel guilty about not finishing the project for the knit-a-long that I hosted. Here she is, my Audrey in Night Sky (a color Rowan discontinued last year).

I made the small size and pretty much followed the instructions to the letter. I did 18 lace pattern repeats for the neckline -- originally I had 19, but that made for too much gapping at the neck, so I ripped it out, removed a repeat and put it all back in place. Now I'm much happier and have a sweater I can actually wear to work.

One word about the application of the lace. It puzzled me a great deal the first time I did it, and then I got an excellent recommendation from an excellent rabbit as to how to think about the problem.

At least for the small sized garment, the back and front contribute about twice as much length to the perimter of the top opening as do the sleeves. This means that we can do a little basic algebra to get where we need to go:

sleeve top distance = x
back and front distance = 2x

perimeter = 2(x + 2x) = 2(3X) = 6X

6X = 18 lace units so...

x = 3 lace units

now we can go back to the sleeve and the back and fronts...

sleeve top = x, so 3 lace units per sleeve top
back and front = 2x, so 6 lace units have to span each of those.

So when I pinned the lace down to the top, I just made sure that there were 6 lace units over the back, 3 over the first sleeve, 6 lace units over the front and 3 over the remaining sleeve.

For me, it all added up to a nice little victory dance and even a few nice compliments from my husband.

And now I can claim my very own label. Woohoo!

Theresa: Chrisanthi's Audrey

I'm doing a stand-in post for Chrisanthi who recently finished her Audrey:

Chrisanthi hasn't had the chance to wear her yet; she writes: "I made her using a wool/alpaca blend on size 3mm needles. The weather here has been too hot to wear a sweater but they've forcast snow for the weekend."

Just so you all know, "here" is Greece for Chrisanthi. So we now have a Greek Audrey to add to our finished list!

As someone who is sitting amidst a great deal of snow, here's hoping that Chrisanthi got a little cool weather to enjoy her sweater in, but not too much snow.