Henry VII sweater
Recipient: DH
Designer: Alice Starmore
Pattern: Henry VII
Source: Tudor Roses
Due: No date (maybe Christmas 2007)
Colours: Unknown (version 1 deep plum, version 2 slate blue with navy accent)
Yarn: Unknown (version 1 Red Heart acrylic, worsted weight; version 2 Luxury Collection 100% FS alpaca, DK weight)
WIP status: version 1 about a foot of front; version 2 about 7" of front
Notes: For version 1, the yarn is slightly too thick and I was using 4mm needles instead of 4.5mm to get gauge. For version 2, yarn is slightly too thin, but I can probably block it to the intended measurements.
Other Henry VIIs:
at alisonknits
by Sara
at Orochi's Hut
- 2005-Aug-21
- The indecision concludes.
The story so far:
around November 2004: I've been working on Alice Starmore's 'Henry VII' sweater pattern for DH for some time, but have started to have misgivings about the yarn I'm using for it (Red Heart acrylic). It doesn't seem luxurious enough to do the pattern justice, and I'm worried that the sweater will end up looking like crap.
Christmas 2004: MIL gives me the 'Simply Beautiful Sweaters for Men' book, a whole bunch of DK weight alpaca, and a request to make the 'Stacy's Sweater' pattern for either DH or my brother.
post-Christmas 2004: I realise that the 'Stacy's Sweater' pattern does not jazz me. I decide I want to make Alice Starmore's 'Henry VII' sweater pattern with the alpaca instead, and thus solve two problems with one solution. Test swatch shows this will work.
New Year's eve 2004/5: I ask DH if he minds if I do Henry VII instead of Stacy's Sweater. He confesses he likes the Stacy's Sweater a lot, even though he also likes Henry VII.
early January 2005: I have guilt about messing with MIL's gift intentions and DH's desire for the Stacy's Sweater, and decide to go with the Stacy's Sweater pattern after all. Discover very shortly that the yarn is waaaay too small for the pattern. By process of elimination, this leaves me with only one choice: use the gift alpaca to do Henry VII.
a few days later: I lament the fact that the yarn, while of course it looks lovely doing Henry VII, would look even more lovely doing the Stacy's Sweater pattern.
Fast forward to this weekend...
I was flipping through the 'Simply Beautiful Sweaters for Men' book. And once again I came across the 'Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover' pattern:
And once again, I drooled over it. I'm sure you can see why. It's a lovely sweater, and ever since I saw it I've wanted to make it for DH. Not only is it gorgeous, not only do I think DH would look really sexy in it, but it is also very stylish. And I hate to say it, but the vast majority of the sweaters in DH's wardrobe are...well...not stylish. They tend to hearken back to the Bill Cosby era of sweaters.
So this time flipping through the book, it hit me...what if, by freakish chance, the gift alpaca was the right gauge for this project? It would suit the Larry's sweater bee-yewtifully, and, making a sweater from the same book as the Stacy's Sweater pattern would be much more in line with my MIL's gift intentions.
But I figured it would never work, since the yarn had been way too small for the Stacy's Sweater project. But what the heck. I did a test swatch last night. I GOT GAUGE.
This morning I cast on for the Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover. Here is where I am so far:
For the first time since this whole rigmarole started, I am truly at peace with (and excited about) the decision. I still have no idea what yarn I'm going to use for Henry VII (which I still really want to make for DH), but at least I definitely know what I'm doing with the gift alpaca. I'm going to use the one navy ball that came with the 'kit' to do the ridge around the neckline below the collar. I think it will look fantabulous.
DH knows nothing about any of this. It might be a surprise. :)
- 2005-Jan-18
- I didn't actually do any more work on this project, but I did take a picture of what it looks like so far:
- 2005-Jan-7
- About another inch was done last night on this project. Unfortunately, I'm now a bit nervous that doing all the bobbles in a different colour is going to look dumb. But I will give the pattern several more inches to see how it goes.
- 2005-Jan-6
- I've probably done about another inch or so on the front. Unfortunately I screwed up all of the most recent row and have had to "tink" it. Grr.
- 2005-Jan-5
- The amount of flip-flopping I've done on these projects is absolutely incredible. First, I decided that I would, after all, do the Stacy's Sweater for DH out of the gift alpaca, because DH was so obviously very keen on that pattern. Okay, so decision made, right? Wrong. When I went to actually do the pattern, I discovered that it called for a worsted-weight yarn. The alpaca is sportweight. !!! I don't know what the lady at the LYS my MIL bought the pattern and the yarn from was thinking! Just out of sheer doggedness, I tried the alpaca on the pattern anyway, and surprise surprise, the sweater was so small it might not even have fitted me. (And I have about a 24" waist.) So! I went back to DH with this information, and he agreed that it would be better if I did the Henry VII pattern with the alpaca instead. Which is a great shame, because honestly, the Stacy's Sweater would look fantastic done in alpaca, and DH really likes it, and MIL wanted me to do it...so it's kind of sad that I can't. However, the Henry VII sweater is coming along nicely. I'm using the contrasting navy skein of alpaca to do the bobbles. This should give it some extra oomph. DH likes it a lot so far.
- 2004-Dec-31
- I finished the test swatch with the alpaca and discovered that I can actually get pretty close to Henry VII gauge with the stuff. Thus I presented my findings to DH. I told him that although the Stacy's Sweater pattern would of course look lovely with the alpaca, and nice on him, and it was what his mom had in mind, I didn't think the pattern was too exciting and would rather make the Henry VII sweater out of it instead. He said he'd think about it. He likes the Henry VII sweater very much, but he is also quite keen on the Stacy's Sweater pattern. After hearing that, I'm a bit more gung-ho on doing the Stacy's for him, since he obviously likes it so much. And now that I think about it, the yarn would suit the Stacy's pattern better. Oi! So many choices! I shall await DH's decision.
- 2004-Dec-30
- I've been minorly fretting about this for a while. I'm currently making this sweater out of acrylic. And since I've started to work more and more with natural fibres, I've been thinking that using acrylic for such an incredible sweater is a dumb idea. Am I becoming a yarn snob? Perhaps. At least for better-than-casual adult pieces - I'm still very gung-ho on acrylic for baby things and afghans. But for this sweater, I've been thinking that the acrylic will end up looking cheap. The thought also occurred to me yesterday that I would really like to use the heavenly alpaca that my MIL gave me for something more interesting and stunning than the Stacy's Sweater pattern my MIL suggested. So last night I thought, why not kill two birds with one stone and see if the alpaca yarn will work with the Henry VII pattern? The problem with that idea is that the alpaca is sportweight, and the Henry VII pattern calls for worsted weight. So last night I started a swatch with the alpaca doubled. Six rows in I realised the swatch was going to be way too huge. So now, just for the heck of it, I'm doing a swatch with the alpaca in single strands. It will probably end up too small but hey, you never know until you try.
- As of 2004-Nov-08
- Who knows when it'll get done, but he'll look great in it.
