Recently in Sigil Category
I have converted my notes on Sigil into an actual downloadable pattern, in PDF format, complete with schematics for any who might be interested.
You can find the link to Sigil (and other free patterns I have made) in my Patterns Index or just download the pattern itself by clicking here.
This weekend I got a chance to work on Sigil's collar. I wanted a collar with points with some cable detail that worked with the chain design on the borders. Instead of knitting a separate band (which I couldn't figure out how to neatly connect to the sweater), I picked up stitches around the neckline and knit onto the sweater. Instead of the linked ring motif, I chose to place 5 individual links at even intervals around the collar on a background of reverse stockinette. And the bottom edge of both collar points is a two stitch border of regular stockinette.
With a nice wool sweater on, it was actually warm enough to go and take some pictures outdoors on our balcony. The natural light meant that John was really able to capture the cable details well. Unfortunately, my hair kept getting in the way of making it clear how the collar really looked.
Because Sigil is really a jacket rather than a true cardigan sweater, she doesn't have the same kind of give and drape. I like that the targhee wool really holds onto a nice structured look, even though it's knit at a final gauge of 3 stitches/inch. It was a good choice for this jacket that I wanted to hang relatively straight down from the shoulders.
This picture is meant to show off the set-in sleeve as well as show a bit more about how the jacket falls. I'm glad that I fought through the set-in sleeve shaping calculations, because it really gives this bulky jacket just a little bit more sophisticated look and gives it the option of being work-wear as well as a relaxed weekend jacket.
No finished sweater photo shoot would be complete without a view of the back. One of the things that invariably makes me crazy about the knitting magazines and their photography is that I almost never get to see how the back looks. Sigil has no side shaping, so she looks pretty much the same in front and in back, from that perspective. I think the bottom panel with the cable detail gives the back some oomph without being over-the-top.
The only thing I am wrestling with now: is Sigil really finished?
My first finishing question: Did I find the right collar for the jacket? Are the points too big? Are the motifs the right motifs? Are they spread too far apart? At first I was pretty ambivalent about the collar, but now that I've seen it photographed, I find myself liking it more and more. If I keep it as it is, it will need to be lightly tacked down, to keep the points sitting where I want them to.
The other finishing question: Should Sigil get a zipper or be left without any formal closure? At first I wanted one, then I wanted to go with a clasp, but now as I look at it, I think that, if it gets a closure, a zipper would best preserve the structure I want to have and create the neckline I want to see with regards to the current collar.
So, even though Sigil is completely wearable, I'm still stewing about these things. I think the answers to my questions will likely only come with a few wearings. So wear her I will before I make any final decisions. My impulse to tweak is quite strong, but I know it's possible to tweak things over the top, and Sigil is emphatically not meant to be an over the top jacket.
So what did I learn?
- Soak and block my swatches. If I hadn't I would have gotten a big and unpleasant surprise the first time this jacket got a bath. I let the swatches I did block by hanging so as to ensure that my pinning procedures weren't influencing the outcome.
- Existing garments are handy reference points for creating new ones. Sigil's shaping and sizing are taken directly from a little jacket I bought from J. Jill. that I love and wear all the time.
- Keep cable motifs simple with big yarn. The Targhee wasn't a problem at all to cable with, but big yarn makes for big cables and I didn't want a huge cable motif to swallow me up. I think too much cabling would have been too much for me and the yarn.
- Pick a garment style that works with the structure/texture of the yarn and my figure. A boxy jacket that wants a slightly stiff fabric to help maintain its shape is a good match for the targhee and it works with my figure. A tailored jacket fitted to my curves in the targhee would likely have made me look a bit more -er- robust than I am, given the thickness of the knitted fabric. I think this design is good for me and the targhee.
- Set in sleeves aren't as hard to design as I thought. However, they do take time to think through, and it helps to have few good books to refer to along the way.
- Designing my own sweater was a lot of fun and it feels very rewarding now that I am finished. It also was no where near as difficult as I had worked it out in my head to be. I think that the next sweater I do for John will likely be one I make up on my own so that I can build a sweater that fits his form better than some of the previous sweaters I have made for him.
Want to see the current instructions for the collar? Just click the extended entry link.
I thought I would start this post with the punchline: Sigil is now sewn up and has sleeves. Unfortunately, the bathroom mirror picture option doesn't make it easy to see that it fits the way I planned it or that the set-in sleeves actually do look okay. Or that Sigil lacks a collar and has a significant number of ends remaining to be woven in. But just getting to this point was a bit of a victory for me -- I mean the sleeves are actually the right length! -- so I did the best I could while my photographer is out at a conference in California.
Since grey yarn is a nice yarn to demonstrate with from a photographic perspective, I decided that I would also put together a little explanation of how I deal with set in sleeves. Since it's a lot of pictures, if you're interested, you'll have to bring up the extended portion of the entry.
Notice that those cables twist in the opposite direction?
Both fronts are complete and I'm entering that manic phase where it's all about finishing the sweater. That place where I've definitely gone from process-knitter to product-knitter. It's a strange place for me, this time, because usually I have some idea of where I'm going to be when I finally get to the end. I have a finished model in the magazine to examine and dissect, I might have knowledge of other representatives of the designer's work. But for my own sweater design, there's no glossy picture to look at and there's no previous history to tell me that everything is going to turn out alright.
So I am feeling both adventurous and trepidatious. The true casting of a knit garment's personality always seems to show up as the garment gets finished. It can be beautiful pieces on my blocking board, but it's the structure of the garment that brings it to life. If the structure and the fabric don't combine well together, it the sweater never gets beyond beautiful pieces.
This is part of why I am so particular about blocking. When you block, stitches unfurl, things even out, you can ensure that lengths that are supposed to be the same actually are the same, make sure that armholes are deep enough and that necklines are smooth enough. You can troubleshoot. You can see if things lay the right way. If they don't lay well on my blocking board, they are unlikely to get better in a garment.
So the finishing process will start tonight. Maybe by tomorrow, we'll start to really see the true personality of my sweater shine through.
(The instructions for the Left Front are available for anyone who wants to look into the extended entry).
Having taken Claudia's suggeestion to heart that a tripod might do me a world of good, I set up a large pile of books and boxes and braced my camera so that I could get another "relief" shot of the next piece of Sigil. The vertical cable has 9 links and is followed by a very simple crew-neck sweater neckline shaping. Originally I thought the bottom corner looked a little empty, but now I am thinking of it as a feature that helps make the other cable links stand out more.
I've also created the instructions for knitting this part of the sweater, but because they are kind of long, you'll have to take a look at the extended entry if you want to see them for yourself.
Morning sunlight gives me exactly what I need to show off the cable details in Sigil's sleeves. The flash, when combined with this grey yarn, simply washes all the detail out. Too much reflection from the white in the yarn, I'm guessing.
About the only time I can get a good picture is when I've got some daylight and I can hold my camera still enough to get an exposure that doesn't require the flash. Today is one of those brilliant Chicago winter mornings. Not a cloud to be seen and a deep blue sky. While I love the sun, anyone who's gone through a couple of Chicago winters knows that you can either have bright sun or warm temperatures. And today is no different. The lovely sunshine is accompanyied by 16F temperatures. Cold light of morning, indeed!
This sweater is zipping past me much faster than I expected it would. I'm now finished with the back and both sleeves and I have a good start on the right-front. This weekend promises to be a busy one for me, but I'm hoping that I'll at least get to start the second front before it's over.
After all, it's Chicago. And there's no telling how long these cold bright days that make for the perfect sweater weather will last.
By now I am sure that the before and after blocking shots are getting to be a little old. One of the things I was struggling with a little bit was how I was going to deal with the fronts of the sweater. How to make the corner and edging for the corner work out correctly.
It turns out that my new Knitted Rug book came to the rescue. One of the rugs in the book (unfortunately a quick Google search did not turn up a picture) uses the same cable pattern for it's edging. Donna Druchanas solved the problem by doing shortrows around the corner. It looked pretty good in her pictures, so it got me to thinking that maybe I could employ the same trick. The only question for me was whether or not the whole row/height gauge thing would work out correctly after blocking, and whether my previously observed blocking dynamics would be the same after the shortrows were employeed.
There was nothing for it but to do some test knitting and see. So I designed the fronts, figured out how many rows I needed for the band and did my experiment.
I had several false starts with the short rows and dealing with gapping, but tonight I finally got it straight after remembering about the whole wrapping thing. Makes a big difference in the final fabric that wrapping business does. From what I can tell, everything is blocking the way I expected it to and hte short row corner is going to work out just fine. After it's finished drying, I'm going to pick up the stitches along the top of the band edge and just continue knitting from there, starting a new cable motif on the next right side row.
The armhole shaping will be the same as for the back (no surprise there) the neckline shaping will be based on standard crew neck styling. The collar will have some kind of cabling that complements the sleeve and sweater bands, but I haven't quite decided how I want to do that yet.
Sigil is still moving along. I got the cuff finished and blocked Monday night and I finished up the sleeve and sleeve cap tonight. Once again, blocking helped to induce a remarkable transformation in the shape and size of the sleeve.
Before blocking (sorry, no measurements this time, it's late) the sleeve was of Butterfly-esque proportions. After, it's just perfect -- or at least it's what I planned for. To see how I did with the sleeve cap shaping, I did a little reality check and measured the length of the armhole edge (including the armhole cast off) and the edge of the sleeve cap from the first bind off to the center of the final bind off around the outside curve. About 10.5" for the armhole, about 11" for the sleeve cap, but I think that extra 1/2 inch will not be a problem given that the corners at the top of the sleeve cap will get tucked in a bit at the seam. I'm always pleased when my little reality checks actually work out. So now I've got clearance to move onto the second sleeve.
Here's the instructions that I am working from for the sleeve:
Bottom Band
CO 12 stitches
R1: P2, K8, P2
R2: K2, P8, K2
R3: P2, K8, P2
Maintaining 2 stitch stockinette edges on each side of main pattern, knit the 6 rows that compose the link base (see Elsebeth Lavold’s Viking Patterns for Knitting, p. 13), follow with 4 repeats of the central link pattern (see Viking Patterns for Knitting, p. 14) and complete the motif with the link cap (Viking Patterns for Knitting, p. 13).
Repeat the first 2 rows above that comprise the foundation rows. Bind off as set. There should be 50 rows, including the bind off row.
Wet block to deal with yarn changes before continuing.
Sleeve Body
Pick up 30 stitches evenly across the bottom band when rotated horizontally. To do this, pick up 2 stitches, skip 1, pick up 1 stitch and skip 1, then repeat 9 more times until 30 stitches are set. Be sure that there is one stitch picked up at the first and last stitch of the band.
Knit 5 rows in stockinette, ending with a wrong side row. Increase 1 stitch on each side of the sleeve on the next and every following 6th row until there are 48 stitches across. Knit 15 rows even, ending on a wrong side row.
Cap Shaping
BO 3 stitches at the beginning of the next two rows (42 stitches remain). Decrease 1 stitch at each side of the next and 2 following alternate rows (36 stitches remain). (Use paired decreases as described above for armhole shaping).
Decrease on each side, every three rows, 6 times (24 stitches remain). Purl 1 row. Decrease 1 stitch each side on the following right side row (22 stitches remain). Purl 1 row.
BO 3 stitches at the beginning of the next following 4 rows. BO remaining 10 stitches.
Wet block entire piece to measurements.
Sigil is turning out to be almost like a felting project for me. Nothing is finished until the pieces are washed and blocked.
Gabrielle asked me the following in the comments to my last post about Sigil where I described that I had blocked the band before picking up stiches. I'm confused. Why block the band before picking up the stitches? When you go to block the finished back, won't the picked up (and previously unblocked) stitches shrink in the same fashion, leaving them smaller (or rather narrower) than the band, thus puckering said, admittedly gorgeous, band? That's what's happening in my head when I picture the procedure. Unconfuse me, pretty please?
I hope these pictures help to answer some of the questions. You can see by comparing the before and after pictures that I have more stitches/inch in the pre-blocked fabric and more rows/inch in the fabric after blocking. In other words, the fabric, after blocking got wider and shorter. I wanted the bottom band to be as close as possible to the width that the body of the piece was going to be. If it had been wider, then there would have been a lot more yarn in the picked up area, which I was worried would have an effect on how the fabric would block. I also didn't want the body of the fabric to prevent the consolidation of the bottom band after the stitches were picked up, since I knew the fabric would widen after blocking.
In order to do the armhole shaping, I bound off 3 stitches at each edge. Then I decreased 1 stitch on each side, 3X on alternating rows (48 stiches remaining). After that, I knit straight for 39 rows and did the shoulder shaping by binding off 4 stitches on each of the next following 4 rows, and 3 stitches at each of the next following 4 rows after that. Finally I bound off the remaining 20 stitches.
While soaking this fabric, it gave off quite a bit of dust and debris. To get it to block correctly, I did have to mold it and shape it a bit into the shape I knew I finally wanted it to take. But the end result is soft and and beautiful and exactly the size and shape it needs to be. I guess my swatch didn't lie to me this time.
The next stage of the project will be a sleeve. That will start with creating another band, similar to the bottom band of the back of the sweater, only with 4 pattern link repeats.
Thank you to everyone for the nice birthday wishes. I'm looking forward to this year and I am hoping it will be a great one. And great for more than one reason. Be sure to check out Rob's comment to my last post. Apparently, while the Ab Fab is being discontinued in the UK, it will still be available here in the United States through the US distributor. So if you haven't gotten your Ab Fab fix yet, there's still plenty of time.
Well, after my embarassing drunken fling with the fuzzy scarf (which I still adore, but we've agreed to see each other only when I'm in the car), I've come back to Sigil.
Finally, I have a picture that shows off the cable work a little bit!
To get this far, I knitted the bottom band, and then, because of the shrinky-dink effect I get by soaking this yarn after knitting, I decided the best thing to do would be to block the band before proceeding. After it had time to block and dry, I then picked up 60 stitches along the long edge. I did this by picking up two stiches, skipping one, picking up one stitch, and skipping one until I had 60 stitches on the needles. Now I am zipping my way up the next 9" before the sleeve shaping. I really like how the column of stockinette on the edge of the length-ways piece creates a strong visual dividing line between the cabled area and the plain stockinette. Hopefully it means that I've found a good design element that will work well throughout the garment.
One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is where I got the measurements for the sweater. I used this suggestion from Bonne Marie's technical section, although instead of measuring a sweater, I measured the black jacket that I photographed. It's 40" around and about 21" from bottom to shoulder. The sleeves are about 22" long. I worked tbe rest out from there. I've opted for rather shallow armhole shaping -- only 2" of deacreases on either side.
After I complete the back, I'll completely soak and wet-block the whole piece just to make sure that my swatch wasn't faking me out. Then I'll probably move onto one of the sleeves so that I can make sure that I've got the cap shaping worked out right. It seems like there's more than one way to skin a cap, so to speak and I'm curious to see how that goes.
