I did finish the sweater on time. You don’t have to believe me, and that’s OK. I bound off and blocked it on the 19th day (January 9th at 5pm), the day Rebecca and Jared and Naomi were traveling back home from Iqaluit to Pittsburgh. But a couple things happened as I was finishing it that sent me into emotional black. So I couldn’t write. And it’s taken me a while to work through it.
What was my my crises? Well, part of it had to do with the Savage Mill Yarn Party in my home state of Maryland. I didn’t get in!! I was so bummed!! When I went 2 years ago, they had almost no worsted weight yarn and it seemed like they could really use my yarn to give balance to all the fingering weight yarn they had. Plus my gradient yarns are one-of-a-kind. So I was shocked and bummed and it took me 5 days to get over that…..and a more personal issue…maybe I’ll write about that another day……
I can also get overwhelmed with obligations, and it sometimes paralyzes me. So I go backwards. But that’s over for now. I’m moving forwards again, and so I present: Naomi’s finished sweater!
I know, I still have to sew the underarm seams. Honestly, I was so excited to finish, I forgot to do it. That is still not done, and might not get done until new baby’s matching sweater is also finished. I’ll start that on March 1.
And the buttons are not on yet, but again….I’ll pick those out when both sweaters are finished.
The collar was tricky in several ways: First of all, to sew that picot edge, I had to hem it the old fashioned way. I found it difficult to follow a straight line for hemming, so I sewed in a contrasting (dark purple) yarn. You can see it if you look closely. After I finished the hem, I gently pulled the contrasting yarn out.
See my guide thread? It really helped….I’ve been finding that a helpful technique with several yarn projects.
Secondly, the collar had a corner. So when I added the picot edge, I did modify the hidden edge by decreasing one stitch on either side of the corner. That way it lay nicely on the underneath side of the collar.
Thirdly, I did not like how the neck edge turned out. I seemed rather long in proportion to the collar. So when I picked up stitches for the picot hem, I picked up every OTHER stitch, thus shortening the neck edge. You can see the difference from the left edge, unfinished, compared to the right edge, finished. Overall, it’s OK. There were a lot of fiddly details, and I’m not sure that this sweater, designed for a baby, really works well as a toddler sweater. But hey, I gave it my best shot. Surely the two little girls will look adorable in them together. Can’t wait to see it myself. Baby Pat is due in a month…..