Audrey A-Long

Lame blogger

I am a lame blogger, but I can report good progress on my Audrey. Still no photos, but I finished knitting the pieces and I'm working on the neckband. I'd like to finish her this week and move on to my next fall project. (Lara by Debbie Bliss.) The lace is going fine, and I expect to use 18 or so repeats. I still read new posts here and the archives as I go along to make sure I'm doing things correctly. This blog-along has been invaluable! (I've also found lots of other new blogs to read by following your links.)

In amour with my Audrey

It's a finished Audrey in Amour!

Amour is very red...a very warm red. I think I might have preferred something a little tiny bit more pink, but ah well, I love this sweater anyway! I started on September 1st and finished September 21st, mostly because I knitted for 5 hours each way to and from Toronto. Good thing because now I can wear this before it gets too cold!

I knit 19 repeats originally but read through a lot of these entries (so helpful!!!) and decided to rip back to 18 repeats. I tried seaming the neckline a whole bunch of different ways to get the look I wanted. It think it turned out quite successfully and would love to make something else in Calmer. See my 'work-in-progress' entries on my blog at http://sweetgeorgia.planetfishdesign.com

Better late than never?

Thank you, Theresa, for letting me belatedly join the Audrey-a-long. I have been really inspired by everyone's Audreys, and I have enjoyed reading through all the posts.

I received my yarn (Calmer Amour: I'm a little disappointed in the color; I thought it would be redder, but it has a bit of brown in it.) and pattern Monday, swatched to gauge Monday night, and began the sleeves. I generally work them both at once. (It's a compulsion; I always knit both socks consecutively too.) With Becky's help, I have decided to work the decreases/increases at the side rather than the vertical darts. My goal is to finish by mid-November and add Florida to the map.

Audrey epilogue

I entered the room as the family was sitting down to dinner.
"Look, I finished my sweater"
"Great" they mumbled as they dug into the tortellini, barely looking up.
"Honey, I am going to need you to take my picture, so that I can show that I finished Audrey"
"It has a name?" They all look up.
"Yes, it is a sweater that people all over the world have been knitting, and no one from Oregon had done it yet, so I thought I would put us on the map."
"Is this an internet thing?"
"Yes, there is a whole community of knitters just like me"
"Mom, there is no one else like you."
Later, after the photo, the agonizing of how to post the thing, all the horrible details about which I will spare you...
"Hey, look everyone, its posted on the site"
They all crowd around the monitor.
"Wow, that's a cool site"
"Look, all the sweaters look just like yours"
Mental "Duh", Verbal "Yes, honey, we all used the same design"
Long pause...
"Mom, can I borrow that sweater sometime?"

Three Cheers for Our Latest Finishers!

I'm moving this entry so that I can include our newest victory dancers, Anne and Ann!

Just thought I'd update the map since we've had a few new victories to report.

create your own personalized map of the USA

A big congratulations to Shelley (Ohio), Lauren (Connecticut), Rachel (Alabama) and Sarah (Texas), Anne (Oregon) and Ann (DC) Your labels should hit the mailbox this week. Here's the overall tally:

Alabama 1
California 5
Colorado 1
Connecticut 1
Illinois 1
Kentucky 1
Maryland 1
Massachusetts 1
New Jersey 1
New York 1
Ohio 2
Oregon 1
Texas 2
Utah 1
Virginia 1

England 2
Finland 1
France 1
Germany 2
Japan 1

That's a total of 29 Audreys that are gracing the world. How cool is that?

P.S. Check this out... it's an official Audrey Hepburn stamp issued by the US Postal Service. I think I am going to need to get some of these to send out labels to the Audrey finishers!

Finished!

The Calmer was a DREAM to work with. I've only been knitting about a year, so I'm still learning that there are yarns that are not so fun to work with. Calmer was really easy on the hands and on the eyes, with its soft hand and good stitch definition. It did get a little splitty on the seaming up, but that was pretty easy to avoid. I only found 2 knots in the 7 balls I used, which is more than acceptable to me. My Audrey is in the color Peacock. I made the size S and I used Denise US8 and US9 needles.

The pattern was pretty easy too. I ended up going with Tiffany's modified decreases because I had an easier time visualizing what they would look like -- I had a hard time envisioning what the pattern's ones would hang on the body (chalk it up to the newbie knitter again). I raised the increases and decreases a little less than an inch because I'm high-waisted. I think that was a mistake, as it doesn't hang as well as I would like. But I do like the way that it seems to accentuate the curves. I also shortened the sleeves to make them three-quarter length.

I really like this style and the way it has a nicely curved boatneck. I did 19 repeats on the neckline. It probably would have been fine with 18 too, but I wanted to make sure that it was shoulder-hugging. Over the weekend, I realized that I actually own three other sweaters that are similarly styled with no top shoulder seams, only side seams. I guess that's why I was drawn to Audrey!

The lace edging was tricky for me. I'm still not sure I know the difference between a YFRN and a YRN FWD, but it looks okay to me, so there ya go. Twice I got off by a row so that my zig-zags started appearing along the straight edge... rrrriiiip. Once I started using lifelines, my frustration went down exponentially.

I also realized through this that the knit-blogging community is so helpful and informative -- not to mention NICE -- that I really should come out of lurkdom. So, I set up a virtual home at fidget.prettyposies.com. Y'all come!

finished Audrey!

When I got to the neckline I had 216 stitches total. 18 repeats x 12 rows = 216 exactly, so guess how many repeats I did? When I got to the neck edge, I worked a SSSK, working through the backs of the loops,so I decreases 2 stitches for every two rows. I am very happy with the outcome, and the sweater is very soft and stretchy. Thank you so much to all of you for your inspiration. I wouldn't have thought to knit this sweater if I hadn't seen how great it looked on all of you.

Finely Finished

I have finished Audrey. I used Rowan Calmer in Pool. I had 17 pattern repeats on the neckband. I love the way it turned out. I actually finished it a few weeks ago, but my daughter got married on September 5, so I was busy with all the wedding details until now. I hope I followed the instructions correctly to post the photograph.

Shelley

So excited!

I'm so happy to finally be joining you all! I purchased the yarn (Calmer in Tinkerbell) and the book way back in June, but was quite intimidated by the pattern! I kept taking the yarn out and putting it away, taking it back out, etc. Several projects later - I am ready to begin! I started last Friday and successfully got through the first set of decreases. I finished three sets of increases last night. I am really enjoying the pattern and the Calmer - ooohhh, it's so wonderful! Thaks for all of your inspiring posts, both here and on your blogs - I couldn't have gotten started without you all!

Casting/Binding Off in Rib

Yet another question/informal poll*: When casting off in the rib pattern, what technique is most effective? The pattern says to cast off in rib, and this is not a technique I've used before. When I consulted the ever trustworthy Vogue Knitting, the technique given was using a darning needle. Is this the technique used by most of the Audrey A-longers? If not, what technique did you use?

I was originally thinking of binding off with the standard, old reliable technique (knitting the knit stitches, purling the purl stitches, and then passing the appropriate stitch over). However, I imagine the bind off technique is somewhat important with Audrey because of the detailed neckline...

Thanks!
~Ara

*Apologies if this has already been covered, I did check the archives and didn't find any specific info related to casting off...

Finished Audrey

I started Audrey 9/2 and finished 9/12. It was rather manic knitting. I followed the decreases and increases as stated in the pattern. I knit bracelet-length sleeves (I knit 5 rows after the last increase before starting the armhole shaping) and shortened the front and back a little since I'm pretty short. I knit the smalles size and knit 17 pattern repeats on sz 7 needles. I was worried it wasn't going to fit well around the neck so I think I stretched it out too much at the beginning and as a result had to bunch it a little towards the end. If I were a good rabbit, I would have unseamed it and started over.

You can read more about the knitting of it here although I didn't post much about the process since so many people had already posted wonderful progress pics. It was great to have the archive of this group to help me figure out what I should do for the decreases, increases, and neckband. Happy Knitting:)

update on knitting audrey in the round

I finished the body, and joined the sleeves, preparing to work the raglan yoke in the round. I wanted to have P2 at each join, so instead of removing 10 stitches total at each underarm, I removed 12. I decided to go ahead and Kitchener the stitches, just to get it out of the way. Kitchener is tricky in 2x2 rib, and it doesn't look exactly perfect, but it is good enough. All of the sleeve and body stitches fit surprisingly well on my 24" circular needle. I was a little worried about it, but the ribbing sucked up, and it was no problem. I worked out another chart to keep track of my rounds, and made notes when to decrease on the body, and the sleeves, and I am currently on round 12. It is looking good so far! I am looking ahead to the lace edging, and, in the interest of having a completely seam-free Audrey, am planning to knit the edging onto the live stitches. I have done this before with button bands and shawl edgings. When I get the exact math done on the ratio of rows to stitches required, I will share it. I changed my mind about how to best join new balls of yarn, and am weaving them in later now, instead of splicing. I just didn't like the way the cotton spliced. I also want to warn folks thinking about doing Audrey in the round that at the current state of knitting, it is big and fairly heavy to work with. It looks great, though, and you can see the shaping and elegance of the sweater. I have been knitting in public a lot, and have been getting lots of admiring comments.

Ho finito l'Audrey!!

Excerpts from my September 12, 2004, entry at my blog appear below:
After a wrangle with the neckband, I plowed on through until morning so that Audrey could be put to bed, or on a Vespa as the case may be.

I first attached the neckband after a mindnumbing 28 repeats. Why so many, you ask? Well, I, being the novice sewer-upper that I am, wrongly assumed that I would need as many repeats as would fit around the neck of the sweater I had stitched together. Never mind that people like Jenny had already mentioned on the Audrey-along site that she had used a mere 18 repeats. So I just ignored that somewhere I had heard of a much smaller number. "That couldn't be right," I thought. "Look how small that is!!" Boy, am I stubborn. When I sewed it together, it looked great! Except for the fact that it hung off my shoulders as if Daisy Duke herself had custom made it for me. It was downright obscene. I knew I had done something wrong then. And only after I had made this mistake did I think to look to see what others before me had done. Duhhhrrrr.

Sooooooo, rather than get discouraged, I unraveled my seam, unraveled about ten repeats on the neckband, bound it off again and reattached it. To sew it together using mattress stitch: I stitched one stitch under a knit stitch on the sweater side, one stitch on a thread of the neck band edge, then one knit stitch again on sweater side, then back to the neck band edge, and then on the sweater side again, swooped up two purl stitches at once, hoping to make the ribbing closer together at the neck edge. The ribbing did draw together nicely, though I'm not sure if what I did will one day lead to nasty holes in the neck edge since every third stitch is twice as long. I guess time will tell!!

Once attached, thanks to guidance from the Audrey bloggers (thank you, blogsters, for the "search" option!!), I had a neckline that neither gaped nor slid down my upper arms obscenely. No, no, it sits placidly on my shoulders as if to say, "C'mon, ride the Vespa at 55 mph and see if I budge."

I've learned so much from doing this sweater, as I do from every experience. Radio money advisor, Dave Ramsay, calls stupid financial mistakes "tuition to Life University" or the "stupid tax." I call these mess-ups "knitting lessons." Hopefully, I'll learn that the next time I have to make a neckband, it doesn't have to match the hole in width. In fact, it should be made to match my NECK!! What a concept!! The hole can be sewn to a much shorter band, thereby making it FIT!!

I'm very pleased to have been allowed to participate with such a vivacious and knowledgeable group of knitters. What a blessing this blog has been! Thanks so much to everyone and I look forward to seeing more finished Audreys in the months to come!

Now, bring on the label!!

Progression

After ripping my first attempt on US#10s, I'm liking my second attempt at Audrey with the 9's. The ribbing is much more even, and she's lookin' good. I'm only slightly worried about my row gauge (Audrey being too short), but we'll see how it goes. A belly baring Audrey wouldn't be dignified! :)

Here's a picture of my progress thus far. I've made it through the decreases and I'm just through my second increase. As I posted earlier, I'm knitting Audrey in Zest, which I know a few other Audrey a-longers thought was very, very purple (myself included). The more and more I knit, the more and more I love this color. I think it'll be a great fall/winter sweater. This picture is somewhat true to color:

Happy Audrey A-longing!

~Ara

Ribbing confusion

When I knit the back of the sweater, I accidentally cast on two too few stitches. I miraculously placed the darts exactly where they needed to go and didn't discover my error until I cast on for the front and tried to knit the ribbing. I had knit 2, purled 2 all the way across the back without any edge stitches. When I tried to do this for the front, I ended up with an extra set of purl stitches. I ripped this out and worked the front the same way I did the back.

Here's hoping the darned thing will fit me. Other than sizing, I'm not particularly worried about this mistake. From having sewn together 2x2 ribbed sweaters before, I know that my ribbing is going to be symmetrical all the way around the body of the sweater, since the selvedge stitches will disappear in the seam.

Now that I'm starting the sleeves, I've decided to try to follow the instructions to the letter. For the particular size I'm knitting, it says to K1, p2 and then continue across the row in 2x2 ribbing until the last three stitches, where I'm supposed to p2 and then k1. My question is this: when I sew the sleeves together, aren't I going to end up with the section around the seam looking like there are four purl stitches in a row, not broken up by a couple of knit stitches?

Oh yes, I have another question as well...how many stitches in did you work your increases?

Thanks for your help!

onto the body

I finished the second sleeve up to the underarm, and set it aside with the first sleeve. Whoo hoo! I tried them on and it is quite a look, let me tell you. Then I cast on for the body. Because I am right on gauge, and the sleeves fit great, I didn't make any adjustments to the pattern to compensate for working in the round. In my size (for bust 38") the suggested number of stitches are a total of 216, which divides perfectly into the 2x2 rib. If I subtracted selvedge stitches, I would have 4 purl stitches at each seam. Not what I want. So I cast on 216 and sailed on. While watching Scrubs on TV, I switched to the size 8 needle. I have one more row to go before placing my markers for decreasing. The dizzying array of decreasing options outlined by Audrey finishers has fascinated me. However, the pattern looks pretty good to me, so I am going to start with the Hargreaves instructions, and will frog back if I need to. Working in the round means you have to pay attention to your row count, as you never work on the WS. Because I almost always knit while doing something else (reading, talking on the phone, watching TV, having conversations) I am going to make a cheat sheet listing numbered rounds, and which represents a WS, RS, or Inc or Dec row. When I finish a round, I will cross a number off. I have used this method in the past, and it works great for me. It makes the knitting go really fast. It works well for cables knit in the round, also.
I really like working with the Calmer. It is very soft and springy. I am splicing the ends when I finish a ball, because I don't want any bumps from joining, and it is not as easy as it is with wool yarn. I just splice a little longer piece of yarn that normal, and it is working just fine.

starting Audrey

I am very excited to join the Audrey knit-a-long. All of you who have finished your sweaters look so beautiful in them! I am doing my sweater in blue Calmer, and am finding it as lovely to work with as predicted. I am doing my Audrey in the round. I started with a sleeve, and got gauge the very first try, with the size 8 needles. Instead of increasing one st at the beginning and end of every 14th round, I am increasing one st every 7th round. This makes a more even increase which is very unobtrusive. I quit the first sleeve at the underarm, and set it aside, and have started the second sleeve now. It is fun to be able to try the sleeve on as I go. I live in Oregon, and am looking forward to putting Oregon on the Audrey map!

Mission Accomplished

This weekend gave me the time I needed to accomplish my mission of completing Audrey. I finished the last body piece and started the neckband last week which meant this weekend included lots and lots of seaming and finishing the knitting on the neckband. It was not as bad as I had anticipated (I am notoriously bad at seaming). I'm actually quite pleased with the results.

If you'd like more details about the decreases and such, check out my blog. Thanks for this great knit-along! I wouldn't have had the confidence to complete Audrey without you!

Got gauge...sort of...

Well, I finally got my stitch-to-row gauges matched up by switching to Addi Turbos. After being a diehard bamboo girl, I'm finding I really like the Turbos, at least with Calmer!

And, I finally got gauge with Audrey, but on US#10s!!! Yowzah! So, trusting the gauge, I started knitting...and really hated how flopsy and overly stretchy the fabric was feeling (and I noticed I'd made a few small mistakes...). I ripped it all out, and I think I'm going to go down one needle size and see how the fabric feels then. With this design, I'd rather have Audrey be a little more snug that too baggy.

Anyone else have this problem?

I did manage to make it to the decreases, and finding them a bit tricky at first, I checked out Julia's great tutorial and found it to be extremely helpful, particularly the pictures.

~Ara

Not Calmer/Update

Last weekend, I tried to stop by the LYS that carries Rowan. Unfortunatly, I couldn't find the store anywhere! I have better directions now, but in my impatience I stopped at another shop and picked up some wool that I'm going to try. I'm using Galway Highland Heather (by Plymouth) in a flecked autumnal orange (color 742). Very pretty. It is supposed to be 5 sts/inch on U.S.8 needles, and I swatched on 6s, 7s, and 8s. None of the swatches matched the guage! Err. So I decided to just knit it. The swatches are in stockinette and the sweater is ribbed, so I'm just going to follow the pattern and see what happens. If it doesn't fit me, I'm sure it will fit a sister or niece!

That's the update: Got the yarn, knitting to pattern (maybe not guage), and working on the decreases.

Late Joiner / Gauge Question

Hello! I just joined the Audrey A-long and boy am I excited to knit this sweater! I've followed this knit a-long for a while now, and I just couldn't stand not making this sweater. I'm using the discontinued color "Zeal," which is indeed very purple, but I think it'll look great with just the right scarf and white pants or a skirt...

Okay, on to a more serious questions. I've started swatching, and last night I swatched with Addi Natura's US#8s, and got 21 sts=9.5 cm and 30 rows=9 cm. I did my first swatch with US#7s, since I tend to be a loose knitter already, and got 21 sts=9 cm and 30 rows=8.5 cm. Hmmm... This leads me to believe that when I swatch with US#9s, I'm going to be right on the money with my stitch gauge, but still half a centimeter off on the row gauge. Any suggestions??