Indigo Project II: Jersey

So I've been sort of obssessing about this one... It's because I have so much of this yarn - 5 cones I think.

On Saturday I spent a couple hours working out the swatches, and building the basic pattern using The Knitting Fiend's generic Sweater Pattern generator. It's a pretty simple shape, just some slight shoulder->waist shaping really. Big crew neck, for those of us with bull-thick necks. No waist welt, but instead a deep rolled hem. I haven't planned out the armhole or neck gussets yet, but it's part of the design I have in my head.

Then I knit the front and back on Sunday, and ran into a few troubles. The back went first, and the hem rolled nicely, but the waste yarn I used refused to neatly unravel, so I can't say whether or no I got every stitch aligned properly. I figured I'd just go on and do the front and worry about the waste yarn later.

For the front I cast the waste yarn on a bit more simply, hoping it would unravel easier. I also decided to try a slight a-shape to the rolled hem, to make it stand out more. But I got so involved in the increases and decreases that I rolled it 10 rows early. And the waste yarn wouldn't come off easily here either.

Even worse, there is a clear color change shortly up the front. No doubt there's a knot I didn't catch as it went by. I figure I could frog the whole thing, start the front over, but that would be a real pain and require a lot of handling of the yarn. And this yarn is intensely surface-dyed, and the dye is coming off on my machine, my clothes, and my hands enough already. I'll live with this one being oddly colored on the front, and maybe it will equalize in the initial wash (it's intensely dyed, if I haven't made that clear yet... The sinkful of water I used to hand wash the swatches could nearly have been used for colorwashing, and was much more than normal blueing for white linens.)

Of course after knitting the two pieces I remembered about using full-fashion increases and decreases to make life easier when I get to the joining part of the sweater-making. I certainly plan on doing so on the sleeves, however.

I'm trying to decide, in the back of my head, the sequence I'm going to use to put the thing together. I think I'll be joining the right shoulders, purl sides together, to create a nice lumpy shoulder seam. Then I'll hang the neck stitches, and knit a simple 2x2 industrial rib neck welt. Off the machine, the hang the left shoulder stitches purl sides together, and pick up the ends of the neck welt, and seam them together as well.

Hang the sleeves and the body, knit sides together, to have a nice smooth seam. Then two long mattress-stitch seams up each side and it should be done. Which is so easy to write in so few words here, and so much more difficult to accomplish in real life. And it's not getting done with me babbling here in a blog, so... Tah!