Audrey A-Long

Fini

Audrey is completed and just in time for summer! I think I may be the only one who has knit her in 100% cotton and with the San Francisco foggy days and evenings I'm sure Audrey will be my favorite summer top. The picture has the variegated yarn a little blurry, but in person she's not. It's in Brown Sheep Kaleidoscope variegated cotton. Everyone has had such great things to say about Calmer that I will have to use it for another pattern in the near future.
And without seeing all the knitting going on, Audrey may have languished in my to-do pile for awhile -- so thank you knit-a-longers! janet d.

Party time! Bring dip.

You know what I love about the sleeves and front/back pieces of Audrey? They fit together like a keen little jigsaw. Just place side by side, and sew. I did my own while drinking a cup of coffee yesterday morning. Zoomed right through it. And yes! I've got a mini graphic tour for you over at my site, skinnyrabbit.com.

I used mattress stitch to join the seams of my Audrey. For those who've yet to try out mattress stitch but would like to, here are some resources for seaming I recommend:

Katharina Buss' Big Book of Knitting.
Nancie Wiseman's Book of Finishing Techniques.

Links to online resources (as gleaned from my links page):

Assembling a knitted garment. [The illustration at the top of the page shows the seaming I used as pictured above.]

Lucy Neatby's Refinements to Mattress Stitch.

P.S. On another note: When I share photos of my finished Audrey, you will see that I did not work vertical darts as instructed in the pattern. As mentioned in my 06/April entry on the Audrey blog, I decided to do away with those darts and work waist shaping near the selvedges. While I do not have the vertical darts, however, I did decide to work a horizontal bust dart via short rows. As soon as I finish my Audrey and try it on to see how that worked out, I will share more about it. Stay tuned!

Getting Started

Hi everybody!

I've just joined this group and glad that I'm not too late. I'm making my Audrey in Peacock. I have the yarn, and have done about a dozen swatches. I understand that this is normal! I'm reading all the blog entries, one-by-one, and thankful for all of the helpful hints and suggestions. I'm now about to cast on for the actual sweater. With a long weekend coming up, I'm hoping to make good progress. Thanks to the organizers for such a fun knit-along! Joanne

Sleeve Cap Confusion

I ripped out the top of my first sleeve last night after making some sort of mistake. I charted out the whole sleeve to try to figure out where I went wrong and I've looked at the closeup pictures of armhole shaping on the sleeve cap the you all have been kind enough to post on here. I'm concerned that my rib pattern and the decrease rib pattern don't seem to add up to what I see in your closeups.

Can anyone confirm that the correct RS rib pattern as you begin the first RS decrease row on size Large is K2, P2, K2,..., K2, P2, K2?

The Excel chart I made is here, and more about why I'm confused is in the extended part of this entry. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated!

~Christina

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The Problem:
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After I cast off 5 stitches at the beginning of a RS row and the beginning of a WS row, I'm left with the correct # of sts (66) and a RS rib pattern like so: K2, P2, K2,..., K2, P2, K2. But the next row, the first decrease row on the RS, starts off with P2, K2,.... This seems really odd to me. Charted out, it looks like the knit rib that runs along the edge of the armhole will start out by straddling a purl rib and a knit rib. This problem resolves in the very next row, but the pictures I've studied look like they show ribs from both sections of the sleeve flow right into each other, with no straddling at all.

I looked at the numbers for all the sizes and found that, after casting off 10 sts and before the 1st decrease row, the RS rib pattern is P2, K2, P2,..., P2, K2, P2 for XS, Small and XL. The Medium looks like it has the same rib pattern as the Large at this point.

I suppose that, since you are decreasing in that row, the ribs in the cap section end up stradding ribs in the lower section regardless of whether your row starts off P2 or K2. Still, the pictures and my first failed attempt make me hestitate in trying again with the current rib pattern I have.

Thanks for reading and for any help!

Deconstructing Audrey (The Decreases, at least!)

Since I'm one of the Audrey crew that decided to make Ms. Hargreaves' decreases as is, I thought it might be nice to show you all what I did now that the body is complete. Despite the fact that there are several variations available to you through the other Audrey-ettes, if you are new to decreases, or just new to decreases on 2x2 ribbing, this might be a decrease method that you'll want to learn - it's pretty commonly used and I think it gives a nice result. (Though I can't wait to see how Becky's short row alternative works out!)

If you just want to see the decreases, click here. I've lined them up so that you can view the front and reverse sides as you would on the needles. If you want the full deal, read my extended entry. I've spent some time on this, but it's a lot easier to knit than describe, so let me know if you see an error. I'm good, but I'm not infallible!

Photo of my finished Audrey

Okay . . . here's my Audrey! It fits well (even if my waistline isn't quite so concave as the sweater's), and it beautiful. But yes, definitely too warm right now! It's 86 and humid out there--I took the photo and then hurried back inside to change into a t-shirt.

Now, what will I work on next??? (Of course, there's always the Elfin sweater I started in April . . . and then, I have tons of Kid Silk Haze and the "Birch" shawl pattern looks really nice, too... Hmm!)

Deb in NJ

Another Lovely Audrey

Chuckle. If I don't have anything of my own to post, it's not a bad deal to be able to share other people's victory shots with the group. Karin sent me this shot of her finished Audrey awhile ago (my apologies to Karin for taking so long to get it up here!).

Karin had this to say about the location of the picture and the project:

Here is a picture of me and my Audrey, I finished it in time for our short trip to Rome. It was too warm to wear Audrey during the day. In the bachground should be the ruins of where Cesear got murdred! I am still looking for a nice skirt to wear with Audrey. I am very pleased with the finished result. I am thinking whether I should try and knit a mini version for my six year old daughter. But then without the shaping. I have been looking at my yarn stash and I am debating what I should do next.

Doesn't she look smashing? I think an "Audrey in Miniature" would be adorable and wonderful. Hooray for Karin's lovely top and for a great idea! And there's definitely got to be knit-a-long bonus points for actually getting a picture of Audrey in Italy!

Finished!

Hey, I just finished my Audrey! I finished knitting the edging last night and sewed it up tonight. I'm DONE! (Well, okay, there's still blocking to be done, but does that really count? I mean, it's not like it's going to be cool enough to wear it for a few months anyway!) But meanwhile . . . yay!

Deb in NJ

A Little Motivational Picture

A long time ago, your hostesses made mention of the fact that there would be a little reward for finishing up this knit-a-long. Wanna see what we cooked up?

How Cool Are These?

Every finisher will get one of these fun labels to put in your Audrey or wherever else you'd like to celebrate your sweater victory. We'll keep sending them out until we run out (I have 100 of them). You don't have to be in the US to get one. Blog Hostess Becky has also agreed to help me get them to anyone on the European continent who has finished the sweater.

If you've already finished, please drop me an email at

ifinishedaudrey@keyboardbiologist.net

and let me know your address. PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T POST YOUR ADDRESS IN THE COMMENTS HERE, it's not a safe thing to do. I'll be sending out a bit of mass mailing to the finishers soon as well, but that could take me a while given my life right now.

And yes, you must have finished the sweater and shown us a picture before we'll send out the labels. But there's no "must be finished by" date and there are definitely more labels than participants right now, so it shouldn't be a problem for everyone to have one.

Progress as Promised

Hullo!
I've finally figured out how to work the camera's USB connection (don't worry Teresa; it's not you, it's me) and present Audrey-in-progress. If the swatches surface from the depths of my knitting basket, I can give a little swatch parade at a later time. But for now, here is my progress: completed front and back, plus sleeves started. The sleeves, knitted at the same time, are now about 9 inches long, thanks to a solid afternoon of stitching and half a season of Six Feet Under "On Demand." I plan to make them three-quarter length, so I'm not too far away from finishing.

I'm using Calmer in the color Peacock, which is a really smoky teal. I got gauge on US 8 and 9, using the Denise needles. (Please ignore the lifelines.)

I couldn't wrap my mind around the Rowan dart without a good picture (hard to see through that Vespa!), and am eternally grateful to Tiffany for her alternate solution. Here's a closeup:

(the color is truer to life in the full-size shot.) My goal now is to finish Audrey before the DC summer hits in full force. Here's hoping Mother Nature is on my side... happy knitting!

Audrey Survival Tips

I've received some inquiries about even more specifics about the decreases and increases in Audrey, AND now that I'm starting over on the other body piece, I actually started making some of the same errors I made the first time, so it is eminently clear to me that others could probably use some help. So this time I'm going to pay attention to each detail as much as possible and try to document it as I go along. So, for the first installment,

Survival Tip #1: It is very easy to lose track of the marked stitch. I am using removable plastic stitch markers, attached to the middle of the stitch. (a ring marker will not work with the Audrey decreases & increases.) Move the marker every couple of rows, and take care that you are attaching it to the right stitch, so you don't mistakenly get it attached to the wrong stitch, which I did the first couple of times I tried to knit this sweater. That will throw everything off.

Survival Tip #2: After the first row of decreases, what does the back look like and what should you do? You've just done K3 togethers on the decrease row. The back will look like this:

You will come upon a big honkin' loop. It seems like you should maybe knit here, to keep it in the row, but no, you shouldn't. Read that big honkin' loop as what it is -- a purl stitch. Purl it. When you get to the right side again, you will see a nice slanting knit row beginning to form. It will all (hopefully) start to make sense to you now. Breathe.
(See my blog for bigger pics.)

Portrait of Audrey

You've got to love photoshop. A too-dark photo transformed into a lovely Audrey painting. Anyway, my main point with this post is - wouldn't she look great as a boat neck shell? Sew up the sides, sew a tiny bit at the edges of the shoulders and audrey is seaworthy! (Notice the navy blue scarf - it's a motif, my friends...)

When I reached the point where both front and back were complete, I had to engage in the pin them together and try them on ritual. Particularly with Audrey, who is so long and skinny with that 2x2 ribbing. It's hard to imagine that she will really fit! But she does and looks great. I really think you could use the same body with a light cotton and take a sail.

Other details: For those who are interested, I substituted Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK for Calmer and it is going swimmingly. My stitches are wonky on the rows where I have increased or decreased, but that should all come out in the blocking. I'm on the sleeves now and have decided to go 3/4 length like Jenny. My calculation method is a little different, but the principle is the same. More on that as I go along.

Thank you all for your inspiration. I've lurked more than I've posted, but I've loved seeing all the finished Audreys. You girls are great.

Last but not least, for more on my Audrey, come visit my blog, Mind of Winter.

Pretending to Be Norma

Hi All!

I'm finally beginning to dig out after my vacation. It's a good thing that I'm usually in a good mood when I get back from a vacation because it's the only way I could face all the work that piles up on my desk when I go away. At any rate, I'm sorely behind on helping out a few people who have made requests of me with regards to the Audrey blog. This post is meant to help correct that a little bit.

Norma emailed me to let me know she was having difficulties getting on the blog but that she had posted some interesting information on her own blog as well as a pictoral tutorial or the darting process.

Sorry for taking so long to do this Norma! And thanks for the lovely detailed pictures!

What's a YRFN?

I finally got to the neckband (yay!), cast on my stitches, and . . . what on earth is a YRFN? I found a definition (yarn forward round needle) but no explanation on what it MEANS. Help! How is it different than a YO? (And, how frustrating that it wasn't even listed in the list of abbreviations in the Rowan book!)

For that matter, what is a YFWD (yarn forward) when it's in between two knit stitches??

Thanks!

--Deb in NJ, stalled again!

Finished Audrey!

Here's my Audrey, done in the coral. I know I was anxious to finish it, but the lace neckband seemed to take forever! I was heartily sick of it by the time I reached 22 pattern repeats (for size XS). Otherwise, I really enjoyed knitting it and can echo all the nice things said about Calmer. This is quite a warm sweater -- useful in Northern California, where one can wear sweaters and sandals year round. Must be all that ribbing that makes it cosier. Thanks to everyone who had tips and advice to offer. It really made the project a lot more fun, and I learned some new things, too.

Sleeve seams

I'm having trouble getting my sleeves sewn in--there's a small gap at the underarm, and I'm not sure what to do. (sigh) I knitted the body in the round (as I have done many times on many sweaters) and I'm not quite sure where this little gap is coming from. The curved armhole seams match on both the body and the sleeves, but there's about an inch at the armpit that doesn't quite match up to anything. It's weird (grin). I'll have to figure this out on my own, but it's discouraging--so many of you are DONE! Audrey has sat in my knitting bag for a week now because I'm stalled at the seams and can't start the neckline without them sewn in. I just needed to vent!

Deb in NJ

Sleeve Increases

I've never increased on ribbing before, so please excuse my second post in the last few days. I'm really trying to keep my questions to minimum here, but I'm pretty stuck!

I did my first increase row on my first sleeve yesterday. I did a bar increase in the first and last stitch of the row. For the first increase, it worked out pretty well. I think it was because I was making two purl stitches out of the stitch I was using to increase. The second increase didn't go so well. I think the problem is that I'm starting a new purl rib on that increase, so I need to knit and purl into the stitch I'm using to increase.

After reading what I could find here on how people did the sleeve increases, I tried to make mine 2 stitches in, instead of on the selvedge stitch. I tried doing this with a bar increase, a twisted knit increase (which is a regular M1 increase, I think), and an increase from the the previous row (which Katarina Buss recommends for slanted sleeve edges in The Big Book of Knitting). Everything I've tried looks pretty bad. I frogged back to the row before the increase about 8 times before I started practicing on a ribbed swatch last night. I certainly haven't given up trying to find a solution on my own, and will be stopping by a LYS tonight after work to ask for assistance, but I thought that it would be good to get a survey of what kinds of increases people were using for the sleeves since the pattern doesn't specify.

So if you've done a sleeve (or two), and have a moment, would you be so kind as to post a comment stating what kind you used and whether you did it on the selvedge stitch or now?

Thanks very much for any information you care to post!

~Christina

I spoke too soon...!!!

I knew I should have kept my mouth shut! I thought my Audrey front was going so smoothly UNTIL I reached the point of increasing and noticed that something just wasn't RIGHT. I had a single column of knit stitches that carried up from the decreases... Shouldn't that have worked itself back into the 2 x 2 rib?? I think so! I thought I did the decreases EXACTLY like the directions said! I wish someone would post a closeup photo of their darts so I could compare!! I am knitting the large size. I am so discouraged. I am seriously considering knitting it without the darts at all. None of my other ribbed sweaters have darts and they look fine (this is myself trying to validate this cop-out). My perfectionist side, however, isn't quite sure she is ready to give up. Maybe ONE MORE TRY... Hopefully, someone will take mercy on me and help me out!

3/4 Sleeves.

Hello all.

THANKS so much for the nice comments on my Audrey ;-)

For the 3/4 sleeves, I finished the back and front first and put the sides together. Then, I put it on and measured from the bottom of the armhole down my inner arm to the desired length. On me, this was 14 inches.

One thing to remember about this measurement is that when you raise up your arms the sweater will pull up so you want it to be long enough to overcome this.

Then, I figured out how many stitches to increase over those 14 inches based on the pattern (for the medium it's 18 stitches). Then, I checked my row gauge (8-9 rows/inch). Therefore, 14 inches will be about 110-130 rows. There are 9 increase rows (2 stitches increased per row), so I spread these out over 110 - 130 rows.

In this case I knit the first 6 rows as directed, then I increased every 14 rows as directed for a few inches, then every 12 rows. I always write these out spreading the increases evenly across the rows, making sure that the total number of rows doesn't exceed the desired length. If there is an inch or so left over, I work even to the desired length. Then the sleeve cap was done as the pattern directs...

It's that simple. I do this for all sweaters because I have short arms. And because my row gauge is usually a little off...

Feel free to email with questions, and I can post more on my blog if it would help. Enjoy!

Lengthening Sleeves and Dashes in Instructions

After getting gauge on #6 Denise needles last night, I worked on getting started on a sleeve. I ran into two questions that I'm hoping I can get some help with here.

1) The instructions have dashes instead of numbers on one of the increase sections for the sleeves. They say "...then on every foll 12th (12th: 12th: -: 10th) row until there are 72 (72: 76: -: 80) sts..." Do the dashes mean no increase for the Large in this section?

2) Because I have very long arms and a long torso, I want to lengthen the whole sweater by 4 inches. I'm not sure how I should do this. After studying the instructions for the sleeves pretty well and reading a little on lengthening pieces, I'm still not entirely sure of the best route. Should I do the increases less often (as seems to be generally done to lengthen sleeves), or should I just work 4 additional inches of straight rib to the section that is knit without increasing? I did some calculations, and it looks like the straight area is a pretty small section of the sleeve, about 2" or so. I thought adding 4" there would be easiest, but might look very strange if it's only supposed to be 2".

If I should do the increases less often, does anyone know of a resource for a good algorithm for figuring out how often to increase to get a certain length adjustment? I think I could probably work it out myself, but I thought I would ask just in case.

Thanks in advance for any advice that comes my way!

~Christina

PS -- Calmer has got to be my favorite yarn to date. I want to knit everything in it!

Back is Done... for Now

I finished the back after many stops and starts that I kind of lost track of what I did... It looks pretty darn good, however, I am going to wait and see how the front goes. I am going to follow the pattern EXACTLY for the front and compare the two and whichever looks better, wins. I followed Tiffany's directions for the decreases and increases. Does this mean I will rip out the entire back? (most likely) ACK! I am not usually this patient, but so want to do this sweater right!! BTW: did I mention I am using Size 6's to obtain gauge... I guess I knit this rather loosely! I DO know I will need to hold my tummy in while wearing this! LOL

Another Finished Audrey!

Well, I finally finished it. Thank goodness. I might still have a few days in which I can wear it before summer really sets in...

Goofy smile courtesy of my hubby.

I made the middle size, and my neckband had 18 pattern repeats. I did the 3/4 sleeves and they suit me much better.

I really like this sweater and think I will enjoy it, but without this group I might have given up on it. Thanks you guys!

Progress!

I'll admit, I've been neglecting my Audrey lately. But, I made some decent headway before I set her aside:

I used the decreases in the pattern, and I'm quite pleased with them. Here they are, up close and personal.

I'd also like to mention, for the record, how much I love this yarn. It's just so soft, and once you get used to it, so easy to work with. I'm also in love with the color. I can't wait to finish it and have it get cool enough that I can wear it!

Measuring a Ribbed Gauge Swatch

Hello Everyone:

I'm getting ready to start Audrey (so glad I'm not the only late starter!) and have been making test swatches in ribbing to try to get my skills up to par. I haven't received my copy of Rowan #35 yet, but my Calmer did make it last night. It's even softer than I imagined it would be.

Since I'm a relatively new knitter, I really just wanted to get used to knitting ribs and measuring my gauge against a pattern for which I already had the yarn and pattern. What I'm finding is a little perplexing, and I'm hoping that some of you more experienced knitters can help.

The ribbed swatches are so elastic that I can get just about any gauge measurement I want out of them. (It's a p2, k1 rib in a light cotton yarn.) I did about 5" x 5" swatches on #5 and #6 needles, and both seemed to measure in at 4.5-5 sts/inch. The needles were both Denise tips on the same length of cord, so that can't be right, can it? How do you measure a ribbed swatch reliably?

Thanks in advance for any tips that come my way! Hopefully, I will have some real Audrey progress to report soon. :o)

PS --I hope this post isn't outside the scope of the Audrey a-long. I don't think so since I'm trying to figure this out so I can start the project, but if it is, my apologies!

Other Lovely Victories

Hi Everyone!

I have nothing new to report for myself (other than the fact that I cast on and got the first set of decreases done on the back of my Audrey), but I do have a some other good stuff to post.

The first is Larisa's gorgeous Audrey in black with a white collar. Definitely worth checking out!

I also got a lovely photo from Tracy in the UK who wasn't officially knitting/blogging along with us, but was inspired by this blog and sent me a picture of her own finished Audrey.

And to anyone blogging along -- if you're having problems with photos, but are afraid to ask, don't be! Please let me know and I'll see if I can help you out.

Happy Audrey to Larisa and Tracy!

A Three Hour Tour...

As written about on my blog, I didn't intend to go to Sleeve Island for a three day vacation, but somehow, like the wayward Gilligan and his crew, I got a little off-course. However, unlike that trite goofy show with which I wiled away too many hours in my youth, this detour yielded a fairly productive outcome:

Did you see the one where they almost got off the island? Yeah, me, too.

I'm still working on these, of course, but along the way I'm increasing, I'm increasing, and still my edges look weird. I have been assured that this yarn just looks that way, but is it normal to have so many loose loops hanging off the edge taunting me with their wonkiness? Should I be slipping the last stitches instead of knitting them? Oh help me, KMKTI (Knitters More Knowledgeable Than I). I'm at a loss.