Pebbles Makes Her Debut

Oh yeah!

Here she is: Pebbles in all her Summer Tweed-y glory. The fancy pin holding her closed is one of my Chibi needles. Before I treat you to the glory shots, I thought I'd share some of the finishing process. This is the second raglan sweater that I've put together. I do like to put these sweaters together -- it's a lot easier and less fussy than sweaters with set-in sleeves, at least as far as I am concerned.

See the pretty cables...

This is probably the best picture I have of the cables. Summer Tweed in Powder is very camera unfriendly when the flash goes off. All that nice silk reflects the light and washes everything out.

When I first started working on this sweater, Emma made the suggestion that seaming with Summer Tweed was not a good idea. For any of you that haven't worked with ST, it breaks fairly easily if you pull on it too hard. I didn't have any problems with this during the knitting, but it didn't seem worth taking the chance at the finishing step. Instead, I went out and bought some fingering weight white cotton. Not only did this work like a charm, but it reduced the bulk of the seams. I may do this with other sweaters even where the yarn would work.

The following is a little slide show of the sweater assembly. I know it's a lot of pictures, but I think of this blog as a knitting journal, so I hope no one minds as I indulge in sharing the process of putting this sweater together.

Ready, Set, Seam!

The Front Left is Connected to the Left Sleeve

The Front Right is Connected to the Right Sleeve

The Right Sleeve is Connected to the Back

The Left Sleeve is Connected to the Back

Neck Band Added

All seamed up. Is there somewhere to go?

I wish that the pictures I took of the neck band had come out better. But don't worry, you aren't missing too much. You just pick up 101 stitches and knit two rows of garter stitch and bind off. Here's a close-up of my raglan seams from the right side of the work.

Can you find the seam in this picture?

I'm pretty pleased with how the finishing worked out. But the proof really isn't in the finishing, is it? It's in the wearing. So with out further ado, here's my new favorite sweater:

Comfy sweater and retro jewelry

Pebbles from the back

Look, Ma! Pretty side seams

Can you tell I like this sweater? I've decided that I am not going to add the press studs to the sweater as directed, I am just going to pin it closed when I want to wear it that way. I've worn it most of the day, and it's been keeping me warm and happy. It's loose without being too baggy and the shaping is perfect for me. After a day of wear, the sweater is holding its shape just fine -- gravity seems to be kinder to silk/cotton blends than to straight cotton.

This pattern, all things considered, is a pretty good one. I didn't find any errors and the yarn estimates were just fine (I had most of the 10th skein left over). The only thing I didn't really like were the edges of the pieces, but in the end that didn't make too much difference.

And what did I learn on this project?

• I'm done knitting with un-elastic yarns for a little while.
• I'm done knitting moss stitch sweaters for a little while.
• A Summer Tweed moss stitch sweater is a little unfriendly to knit, but the finished fabric is fabulous and worth the effort.
• Seaming is a lot easier with a finer yarn, and makes for less seam bulk inside the sweater.
• Becky is right to advocate selvedge stitches. If I were to do this sweater again, the edge stitches of all the pieces would be in stockinette. It wasn't that hard to mattress stitch the thing together, but that would have made it easier.
• My husband would wear a Summer Tweed sweater (OMG!), albeit not in baby blue.
• AddiTurbo circular needles ROCK! (And probably saved this project from oblivion)
• In my hands, Summer Tweed is not the demon yarn that a lot of folks wanted to make it out to be. It didn't break on me and I don't think it smells funny. I'd definitely do something else with it in the future if the right project presented itself.

And for everyone who had the patience to read down this far... I leave you with the cheesecake shot I promised if I got the sweater finished over the weekend...
No beach, no hotpants, no tan. Just a pasty white woman and my beachwear from France. My photographer selected the shot. All those Rowan models should start quaking in fear now! Can You Say Cheese?.

Have A Great Monday!