Catherine Parr sweater

Recipient: MIL
Designer: Alice Starmore
Pattern: Catherine Parr
Source: Tudor Roses
Completed: December 22, 2004
Colours: Leaf green and black
Yarn: New Zealand wool, worsted weight
Completed status: Given Christmas 2004
Pictures:

Notes: This is a cropped version of the original sweater - I've reduced the length by about 12cm, since MIL is not a long sweater kind of person.

2004-Dec-29

She loved it. :) Unfortunately she didn't get a chance to try it on in front of me, but she promised she would. Hopefully I'll get to see her in it soon.

2004-Dec-22

Washed it in Eucalan last night, blocked it out, and tried to soak up all the excess dampness with towels. I think my first stab at blocking went quite well. It looks great. Here's hoping it will dry in time for Friday evening's trek over to MIL's place for Christmas. But I now consider this project complete - hooray!

2004-Dec-17

DONE!!! (Brief pause for a triumphant dance of completion happiness.) Now, granted, I still have to wash and block it. But all the knitting and sewing and tucking-in of ends is completely done. It looks terrific. Photos to come.

2004-Dec-16

There is not much left to do on this project, glory be! I have about 5 more rows to do on the neck, half a seam left on one sleeve, and then it's ready to be washed, blocked, and wrapped. Whee! I even tried it on last night to see how the length would be and it looks terrific (MIL and I are different sizes, but even so, there's a great deal of difference between seeing a sweater lying flat on a surface and seeing it on someone). Since there's so little left to do, I didn't bother taking it to work today. I would only have finished it halfway through the day and be forced to twiddle my thumbs idly on the commute home with no knitting to do - a very inefficient use of knitting time, which is in short supply compared to all there is to be done.

2004-Dec-15

Sleeves are done! Shoulders are sewn together! Sleeves are sewn onto the body! I have picked up and knit all the stitches around the neckline! That means that the only things I have left to do are to sew the side and sleeve seams, to knit the neckline, to darn in the ends, and to block the sweater. With any luck, this can all be done by the time I go to bed on Thursday. Wouldn't that be nice! To top all this good news off, now that all the pieces are sewn together, the sweater is looking super-good. Phew.

2004-Dec-14

Slog. Slog. Slog. And now, the payoff to all this slogging - I have fewer than 1.5 rows to go with the sleeve shaping. Considering that each row is now 228 stitches (114 per sleeve), I think this is pretty darn good progress. It also looks very much like there will be no additional rows to knit after the shaping is done - I will probably be able to cast off right after the last shaping row. Yeehaw! After that, sewing can commence.

2004-Dec-13

Glory be, I've only got 14 more rows of the sleeve shaping left to do. I'm pretty sure I won't have to knit very much after that (if at all) to reach desired sleeve length, so with any luck I'll be casting off the sleeves and starting to sew this sucker together soon. I will still have the neck and the blocking to do after that, but the end is definitely in sight.

2004-Dec-10

Sleeves are now 8.5" long. Even got some done on the cab ride home from the office party.

2004-Dec-09

Sleeves are getting even bigger. I'm guesstimating about 7" long at this point.

2004-Dec-08

Sleeves are getting bigger.

2004-Dec-07

Sleeves proceed. I'm now on the main pattern and increases have started.

2004-Dec-06

I've decided to do both sleeves at the same time. Why? Because I know me. I hatehatehate going through the entire first sleeve and then having to do the same thing all over again with sleeve #2 - all the feeling of accomplishment over having finished the first sleeve just dies. Doing both sleeves simultaneously doesn't save any time, but at least when it's done, it's done. The added plus is that the gauge will be identical. So right now I'm over half done the borders of both sleeves.

2004-Dec-03

The redo of the back is totally complete! I finished the redo of the border and grafted it to the back, then I cut away and frogged the old border. I then frogged the top of the back and redid the shoulder shaping so that the length of the back would match up with the length of the front. Hooray for me. Work has begun on sleeve the first.

2004-Dec-02

I'm less than four rows away from finishing the redo of the back border. This is terrific - I think I'm picking up some pace here. Soon I'll be able to graft it to the back, and then it's just a matter of ripping out a few rows at the top of the back and redoing the shoulder shaping so that the back is the same length as the front. Then it's onto the sleeves! Wow, you know I must be bored with knitting when I'm getting excited about starting sleeves.

2004-Dec-01

I'm over halfway done the redo of the back border. Woo. Hoo.

2004-Nov-30

Started the redo of the back border - I'm about 2" in.

2004-Nov-25

Front is now done! Yippee! Now it's time to fix the bottom border on the back - although I used the needle sizes the pattern calls for, the first three rows are waaaay too loose and the fair isle section is too tight. So I'm going back and redoing the border for the back with varying sizes of needles so it works properly, just like I did for the front, which looks much better. I'm casting on the stitches now. I'll graft it on after I've cut off the old border.

2004-Nov-24

I'm almost done the neck shaping on one side.

2004-Nov-22

I estimate that I'm just two rows away from being able to start the front neck shaping.

2004-Nov-19

Still going! Unfortunately I didn't get too much done on this yesterday. But I'm probably about 4cm away from starting the neck shaping on the front.

2004-Nov-18

Work continues, as always. I'm now done 17" on the front. Less than 5.5 centimetres to go before I can start shaping!

2004-Nov-17

As usual, work proceeds. I've done another 1.5 inches on the front. With any luck I will be able to start neck shaping today or tomorrow. I've also wound a centre-pull ball of the black wool I'm using for this project, which is far more portable and practical than carting around the big cone.

2004-Nov-16

Work continues! I've now got almost 14" done on the front. I'm about ten centimetres away from starting the neck shaping.

2004-Nov-15

Got a little bit done. I will be focusing a lot on this one for a while, since it has to be completed for Christmas!

As of 2004-Nov-08

I'm going to have to redo the edging on the back with smaller needles to avoid the flaring at the bottom, and then will probably have to rip some of the top out and redo the neckline because the new edging will make the back longer than I want. Then I can continue with the front.