Audrey A-Long

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I am thrilled to announce the appearance of my completed Audrey, just in time for my 31st birthday! After many, many months of being "shelved" and after a big move from Wisconsin to Nelson, New Zealand in November, my Audrey was completed last night. I haven't had time to wash and block her yet, as I so wanted to wear her for my birthday today (the 27th of December). We are having a cooler summer here in New Zealand so far, so I will be taking great advantage of this extremely comfortable sweater in the next few months. I love her already and know she will look even better after being washed and blocked... I am all smiles!

I made the Medium size in Pool with no alterations to the written instructions for lengths or increases/decreases, and it worked out wonderfully. I did 20 repeats for the neckline and really like how it lays on my shoulders. I have no complaints at all with how it fits, which certainly makes me happy! I have already been proudly walking around town today, and it feels good...

Now I can relax, knowing that the "Audrey 2004" label will be appropriate since I completed it before the end of the year.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's Finished!!!

Here is my finished Audrey. I had to sew on the neckband twice, because it was too long. I took out a lace repeat, leaving 17 repeats, and re-sewed. Once I figured out how I liked it sewn, it was pretty easy. I guess I did a whip stitch, overlaying the neckband on the outside of the body. This is such a great pattern! I can't wait to make a sleeveless one, but that will be next summer. Thanks for knitting with me!!

Something new to wear is in my closet!

YES! My Audrey is completed! Am I pleased? Definitely. I think my first sweater turned out great. (My scanner isn't working,sorry no photo) I made mine using the color Jewel, which is beautiful as you can see from KarenR's recent entry. Very elegant.

I learned that seaming isn't something to be afraid of. It was pretty easy, actually. The neckband only took me one time to set it in. I basted it in with some waste yarn first, then seamed. I shortened the sleeve lengths just a little because I was afraid that it would grow to the intended length while wearing it. I didn't want really long sleeves for this sweater. Now, the sleeves are just right.

Also, a big thanks to Becky. for giving some tips on how to not do the darts. My darts from the original pattern just never looked as neat as I wanted them. Instead of giving in, or giving up, I moved the decreases and increases to the sides as Becky did.

Any wishes? Well, just a little. Bigger boobs. NO, I'm kidding. I'm definitely no Sophia Loren, but now I can see how the short rows as Becky also did on hers is still very appropriate for a figure with not much frontage. Though, the sweater fits great as is, but definately short rows are something I plan on trying another time on a fitted top like this one.

Thank you hostesses, this was a wonderful resource for me to have. Thanks also to all of you Audrey graduates that kept checking in on the rest of us until we finished.

Happy Knitting!

Finished in Canada...

Wow, I am certainly happy to finally be done this sweater - not that working with Calmer was not absolutely wonderful as many of you have already commented. I definitely see more Calmer projects in my future. This sweater is comfortable and soft and thanks to the stretchiness of the yarn, fits very nicely. Although I was anxious to get it done before diving into my fall projects it really is a great fall sweater for cooler days and I can see me wearing it right on into the middle of winter.

Notes: I had decided to lengthen the body by a couple of inches (before beginning the dart decreases) since it looked shorter than I wanted it to be in the Rowan photo, and was later a bit worried that this might not work out so well. I'm happy to report that the length turned out just about right. The only thing that I'm not 100% content with is the width of my lace neckband. I noticed that many of the finished Audreys have a wider neckband which I prefer - I probably should have used the larger needles instead of the smaller ones that I used for the first few rows of ribbing on each piece. This will not stop me from wearing it though as I love the color (it's 'Jewel' which is now discontinued). Since I wanted the neckband to sit on my shoulders, I ended up with 20 pattern repeats.

Overall, this has been a great knit-a-long and I will continue to watch as more and more of you complete your sweaters. I may just have to start a blog of my own!
By the way, has anyone washed their Audrey yet? I'm curious to know if there are tips out there or anything I should watch out for.
Thanks to our wonderful hostesses, great hearing from everyone and enjoy!

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

Finished!

Some thoughts on Audrey:

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!

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

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:)

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!

Now all I need is an Italian Backdrop....

My Audrey has been done for a while, but now she's also photographed:

I love this sweater. The pattern was great and the comraderie made this experience a lot of fun. Thanks so much to everyone who hosted and shared their thoughts and work along the way. For more information on the details of my Audrey (and more pictures - we all love pictures!) visit me over at my blog, MindofWinter.

Finished!

I was supposed to be packing for my trip this weekend, but instead I took a look at the half-finished neckband and said, "this won't take long to wrap up..." Two hours later, I had a finished sweater!

I used 18 repeats on the neckband - once I got it together, I realized I probably could have gone with 16 or 17 instead. I was just afraid of it being too small and the neck being too cinched. I do like how it turned out - I'll just have to suffer through a strapless bra when I wear her out. It'll be worth it, though.

Cheater Audrey

With an upcoming trip to Savannah and Denver temps holding in the 90s, I truncated Audrey and left her limbless. (As much as I adore Calmer, I worried that the acrylic content would exascerbate my summer persperation issues. And we wouldn't want that, would we?)

It seemed such a shame to wait until fall to wear the poor girl; she's been so cramped in that knitting bag. And once I realized (after two frogs, three seaming sessions and a nice chilled European rose) that the lace-as-written extends over sleeve caps--and I had no sleeve caps--Audrey sans Sleeves became much better behaved.

Come "Get Nake-id" at my new site...www.nakeidknits.com. Ciao.

I'm finished

I seamed Audrey over the weekend and here she is. I made the size medium and used about 6 1/2 skeins in the Peacock color. I'm really happy with the way she fits and feels. I loved working with Calmer, too. A lovely yarn. I've so enjoyed seeing all the finished Audreys and I can't wait to see all the future ones! It's extra fun to see them in the different colors. I have additional pictures on my blog today.

WWKT--What Was Kim Thinking?

This Audrey A-Long is the first knitalong to tempt me out of perpetual lurkerdom. I've followed many others. They invariably make me take a hard second look at a design I might have passed over and the individual variation in interpretation of the pattern drafters' instructions is endlessly educational. Audrey is a case in point. Fascinated with Rowan's Calmer after Clara Parkes' review in Knitters Review, I was fortunate to win an eBay auction for a bag of the discontinued color Zeal.

Unfortunately, when the bag arrived, I had none for the color--a true purple, not the inkier color of the seller's (and Rowan's) picture. It was destined to make another trip on eBay. And when I originally saw the Audrey pattern, I have to admit I wasn't taken with it. I wondered how the combination of fitted ribs and garter stitch lace edging came to Kim Hargreaves. What could she have been thinking? Then the Audrey A-Long rolled over me, with its wonderful blog design, creative hostesses and gin fizz recipe. Maybe the pattern had something to recommend it after all. I had to find a copy of Rowan #35 and get going!

I decided to follow the pattern exactly and was hauling up on the underarm bind-off, knitting the front and back simultaneously, when Maud posted the picture of her beautifully finished Audrey. There, in her photo, I could see the exact point at which this baby was going to slow to stall speed and plummet from the firmament. Audrey would officially join my UFO stash when it came time to sew those raglan seams. I have such a finishing fetish that the combination of the stretchy yarn and the close fit of the garment clearly would drive me to a perfectionistic frenzy. There was nothing for it but to knit the sleeves up to the same point, cast off the extra selvedge stitches along with the underarm stitches and march up to the shoulders in the round. I graphed out the different sleeve and body decrease rates to keep track of them. Ah yes, this was better.

Temporarily. Now here was the collar. What was there to lose? I made a decision there WOULD be 21 pattern repeats (the math worked with a small fudge factor), used provisional cast-on and knit that sucker right to the unbound-off neck edge. I wove the beginning of the collar to its end and procrastinated over the straight side and sleeve seams for a while. But Audrey's done now, I've found a certain fondness for Zeal and I'm now knitting the lower garter lace edge onto ANOTHER entirely ribbed and stretchy sweater--Cloud from the Calmer pattern book.

Thank you fellow Audrey knitters! And thank you Theresa, Becky, Morgan and Lis! This was fun.

April

Ta Da !

Well, I finally finished ! I really love this sweater. It's so soft. I wanted to take a second to thank our hostesses for donating their time, money and energy to give us this great web site. It's been a real pleasure knitting along! This was only my 2nd 'flat' knitted sweater. It took me a while, but I managed to seam it up with the invisible mattress stitch. So I have a great feeling of accomplishment. I look forward to seeing everyone else's finished Audreys. Good Luck!

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!

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!

Finished!

I've done Audrey last night!! So happy i could finally finish her in my size, and the grey color turned out better than i expected. I think it pairs well with any bottoms. I usually wear a pair of jeans but i would love to have a new skirt to go with Audrey. It is early summer in tokyo and the weather is too muggy for wearing Audrey. Thanks God, the wather was rain last night and very cool, and i could enjoy putting her on and of several times in front of mirros.

The final results

After a nice dip in the calmer pool, here is my contribution to the Audrey effort!

I'm quite pleased with the results, but I too am in the summer months of Texas and it will be to warm to wear her beautifulness for a while. Fortunately I have a few trips up north planned this summer and now have the most fabulous sweater to bring with me.

Love, love, love the calmer! In fact, I think Iris (also from Rowan 35) may be in my near future. Even though it's hot outside, it's always freezing anywhere you go in the summer.

Finishing frenzy.

Yes, Audrey is a-finished! Finally. I think it took me longer to sew her together than to knit her. I kept putting it off because it was too hot to wear her, but I'm glad I finally did.

I've been checking out the finished Audreys, and counting the pattern repeats in everyone's neckband. Turns out that you can really vary the look of this sweater by expanding the neckband and showing more chest and collarbone, or staying truer to the pattern and using the neckband to cinch up the sweater. I wouldn't have minded having a looser neckband, rather like Anne's Audrey, but it would have made the increases and decreases hit me in all the wrong places, so I kept the neckband tighter. I can't give up the idea of knitting Audrey again, so I may keep the idea of a looser neckline in mind when I plan for the shaping.

All-in-all I found Audrey to be a quick fun knit, and I loved using the Rowan Calmer, and would love to make another sweater in Calmer soon.

Audrey is Done!

I finished her yesterday evening.

Thanks for all your neckdand sewing tips -- I followed your advice and am very happy with the way it turned out.

I used slightly less than 6.5 balls of Calmer for the 36" size. I did 19 pattern repeats for the neckband and I think that worked out just right.

Now my only problem is that we are in the middle of a heatwave here in Washington DC. I have a feeling that poor Audrey will have to wait until the autumn before she gets to have an outing!

Audrey done ..... but rather Sophia ??!!??

Here she comes, my Audrey is done ....

... but I'm not an Audrey at all, but much rather a Sophia !! While my - well - "upper balcony" (as Wendy called it in here blog - nice expression!) usually doesn't bother me at all, in this sweater it looks a lot more than there really is !! Do you think I can go to work wearing this sweater ??!!??
Anyway, the yarn was a real pleasure to work with, the instructions were well written and easy to follow and I got gauge the first try. I think there will be more Rowan designs for me in the future.
I also just looooved the idea of knitting along with others and seeing everybody elses progress, reading questions and answers and beeing part of the party !!
Thanks a lot to the hosts, I will keep on checking in here and reading about all the other Audreys!

Hey, any more Sophias out there ?!?

Greeetings from Germany !

Audrey finished!

My Audrey is finally here and was worth the work as it's lovely to wear. All I need now is a Vespa and Gregory Peck.... I wasn't sure the neckline would suit my narrow shoulders but it has worked out pretty well. I have posted a picture at my blog.

Thanks for all the tips and comments from everyone else here. It's been a great knitalong! I'm sorry I haven't been able to answer some of queries I received about the increases, but I've been offline for a little while. Maud's photo shows them very clearly, though.

Finished!!!

So, what ideas for skirt, shoes and accessories do you have?