Bonkers Rainbow Dyed Pullover Complete

I had a really lovely weekend. Friday night saw the completion of the first sleeve of the Bonkers RDP and the casting on of the second sleeve. Having those little cables running up the side of the sleeve really helped to diminish the feelings of severe boredom I usually have when I tackle the second sleeve, as did the prospect of having a new sweater.

As part of a little pre-victory celebration, I placed an order to Colourway for a bag of Kid Silk Haze in the color "Chill" -- which looks to be a light blue/grey/purple shade. The ten skeins in the bag is a perfect number -- 3 skeins for Birch and 7 for a lacy little cardigan that calls for Douceur et Soie (which appears to be almost identical to Kid Silk Haze in all the particulars I could find). Since the color is being discontinued, it is almost a guarantee that one of these projects will need more yarn than anticipated. But I'll deal with that when I get started. Soon, you'll all get to see if my interaction with Kidsilk Haze goes better than my experience with the Plymouth Fusion. Sorry, Becky, there won't be any ruffles to watch me work through, but I suspect that casting on 300 stitches for a lace project will be equally entertaining/daunting.

I finished up the second sleeve on Saturday after a wonderful shopping trip with Julie. It was a good time to go shopping as I found a number of good end of season deals, though I was unable to find a suitable companion for Siena. Here's the sleeves, blocking in preparation for sweater assembly. The second sleeve was a quicker knit because I only had one ball left to work from and didn't have to hassle with knitting from two skeins.

BRDP Sleeves Completed

On Saturday night, before bed, I had enough time to seam the shoulders and pick up stitches for the collar. I opted to do the collar in the round instead of creating a seam up the side of the neck (which would have probably been an irritation), my only major alteration to the pattern. By Sunday, before breakfast (which is much later for John and I than it is for most people) I had attached the sleeves to the armholes and was preparing to take on the sleeves and side seams.

Color Variation Throughout the Assembled BRDP

This picture is less to demonstratet he assembly than to show how the colors varied over the body of the garment. Put together, it's less noticeable, and is just part of the character of the sweater, but spread out this way you can see how different the 5 skeins I had were.

After the Super Bowl I completed the finishing process (including binding off the neckline a second time with a smaller needle to eliminate a slight ruffly quality) and got John to snap a few photos. This sweater really screams for an outdoor photo shoot, but it's not exactly warm enough, even armed with a nice wool sweater, to do that right now. So my victory shots are a little murky and don't show off the sweater or its lace/cable pattern very well.

BRDP Completed

As you can see from the assembly picture and my model shot, this sweater has a very simple shape. It's not at all fitted, which I like, and the neckline is comfortable. The sleeves are a little more fitted and are constructed to end just above the wrists (it looks the same on the model in the picture on the pattern, so I am assuming this is a design element). Under normal circumstances I would have preferred about an inch more sleeve. But this kit didn't leave me with much yarn to spare, so it wasn't really an option. At least the sleeve won't get in the way when I am working.

You can see how it looks in profile by clicking here and what the back looks like by clicking here.

Unfortunately, none of these pictures give you a good look at the thing that makes this sweater a real winner. John did get one good picture but I couldn't scale it down to a reasonable size for the blog page and still keep the detail visible. So I scaled it down as much as I could. But since it's still a 50 kB image and it would distort my page, if you want to see it, you'll have to click here.

What did I learn?

• The K1 P1 ribbing was done on smaller needles than the stockinette of the body of the sweater. Even so, it created bigger stitches than in the body of the sweater. I've done this for other garments and never noticed the difference. I'm assuming this is because moving the yarn back and forth as the K1 P1 occurs creates a looser, and thus, larger stitch. Definitely something to remember.
• Executing SSK as slip one knitwise, slip one purlwise, but the left needle through the front of the loops and knit both stitches together makes a lovely left-slanting decrease.
• A little detail work makes everything go faster for me. I love to see what is just around the next corner and I keep going as long as I can.
• Worsted weight wool is a nice medium in which to play with lace. The stitches tend to stay put and you don't need quite as much blocking to see what is going on.
• Lace and cables go well together. I'm not a big fan of all over cable patterns -- I tend to get frustrated with the counting and all the slowing down to deal with the cables (which is not to say I don't like the result, just that I am very much a product knitter and I get distracted to other things whent he process is too arduous). But the blending of the two means that I got to have more texture without much decrease in speed. I find lace knitting to be a speedier process, perhaps because it is still mostly variations on the knit stitch.
• I'm tired of working from two skeins at once -- I like the result, but I don't like the lack of portability. In my next couple of projects I'm going to try to stick to one skein at a time.

With that last element in mind, my next project will be Banff. I have some lovely Manos del Uruguay yarn in a deep mauvey color that is just begging to be swatched.