The Girlfriend Shrug

Recipient: DD
Designer: Can't remember - I'll type it in later
Pattern: The Girlfriend Shrug
Source: Knitting Pattern-a-Day : 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar,
Completed: February 19, 2008
Colours: #5618 with "bold stripe effect", and white
Yarn: Sockotta from Plymouth Yarn, 45% cotton/40% superwash wool/15% nylon sock weight yarn, and Lana Grossa 41% cotton/39% superwash wool/13% polyamid/7% elité sock weight yarn
Completed status: She complains that it's 'prickly' and doesn't want to wear it. Le sigh.
Pictures:

front view (doesn't it look like some kind of eyeless Muppet?)


back view


'in action', front view (the only way I could get her to do a non-simpering smile was to ask her to try and make her baby sister laugh...this was the resulting expression)


'in action', back view

2008-Feb-20

Second extension was grafted. Over 290 stitches were picked up all around the edge. Brief panic was felt at the thought of doing 1.5 inches on all those stitches using 8 DPNs, but then June came to the rescue and VERRRY kindly gave me a 2mm circular needle in return for helping a customer find exactly what she wanted in the store. (June, if you're reading this, I cannot thank you enough, the circular made the edging go soooo much faster and easier. You are so nice.)

Anyway, the edging was finished and cast off, and yesterday I finished sewing in all the ends. Here, therefore, is a frenzy of photographs of the finished product.

2008-Feb-16

I have a very nifty story to tell.

Some time ago, I shelved this project because even having put a perpendicular insert down the back three cabled braids wide, the body still wasn't really wide enough to fit DD1 well, and I just could not face the idea that I had to do two more braid inserts - the first one was such a slow slog.

After mulling this problem over and over in my head, I realised that what I really should be doing was trying to find some more of the original striping yarn. Then I could do really fast parallel inserts and some grafting - it would be a pain in the ass, but still considerably less so than the perpendicular braid inserts. The problem was that I hadn't been able to find anyone in the GTA or beyond who sold this yarn, and although I think I did find one or two sites that sold it online, I seem to recall that it was more money than I really wanted to spend.

Enter Ravelry.

I started hunting through people's stashes, looking for everyone who had this yarn in my colourway. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone who had partial balls, but I did find someone who had it, had started to do something with it, didn't like it, and now had now idea what to do with the yarn and it was just languishing in her stash. I 'cold called' her with Ravelry messaging, and asked what the odds were that I could trade her something for it...or just pay for it outright.

Delight of delights, she was more than happy to let it go, and refused to take anything for it. Instead, she asked me to make a charitable contribution somewhere worthy, and that would be good enough for her. Isn't she lovely? (She has no blog for me to link to, unfortunately, otherwise I would.)

Sure enough, on Friday the yarn showed up. I gave some money to Médecins sans Frontières and emailed the Yarn Harlot so that my benefactor would get credited at Knitters without Borders with the donation.

Meanwhile, I've already completed the elongating of the shrug back on one side, and just need to graft the extension together with the rest of the shrug on the other side:



After that, I just have to do the edging and ends-weaving, and it's finished! (I am avoiding the thought of where I'm going to find enough 2mm DPNs to go all around the edge. I'll fall off that bridge when I come to it.)

2007-Jul-26

The centre back panel is now finished!



Unfortunately, as I suspected, the shrug is too small across the back. It's 12.5" wide instead of the required 14". So, I have to heave a deep, fortifying breath and put in two more panels. They'll be single braids, one on each side of the wide panel.

2007-Jul-3

There is progress!



I estimate that I'm about three-quarters done this #*$&@!!!-ing strip of cabling. (Can you tell that it's started to wear on me?) I am particularly dreading the moment when it's done and I proudly lay it out and measure the back, only to confirm that it is indeed way short of being 14" wide and that I will have to cut into the thing and do two additional (but smaller) cable strips.

Repeat to self: It will look lovely when it's done. It will look lovely when it's done...

2007-Jun-22

I knitted sleeve #2 up to the same point as I'd left off on sleeve #1, and then I went back and forth between sleeves, making them absolutely identical until such time as I couldn't knit another row. Then I used what I had left over to cast on provisionally for the white strip up the back (there was exactly enough left for that, I felt like a total god).

White strip is looking good so far:


Unfortunately I don't think it's wide enough. I'll measure the whole back when I'm done, but I may have to cut the back on each side and insert two single-braid white cable strips to widen it up. Stay tuned.

2007-Jun-17

I may be screwed. Reason: I cannot find the bloody pattern for this thing. I've hunted high and low and there is no sign of it. It certainly doesn't help that the pattern is on one measley sheet of paper the size of an index card:



...which makes it even harder to find than an 8.5x11" sheet of paper.

Without it, I'm not sure how wide the white strip in the middle of the back should be, nor how many stitches I should be picking up around the edge. Argh!!!

Update: OMG!!! In desperation, I Googled "girlfriend shrug" to see if there were any bloggers out there who had the pattern - I was going to send them pleading emails for the details I need, with accompanying photos of my copy of the pattern as proof that I do actually own it and was merely stupid enough to lose it. However, the very first hit that Google came up with was the pattern itself! It's right there online for free! Oh, what a happy day. Oodles of thank-yous to Wendy Bernard. Hee hee!

2007-Jun-14

At last - a project that isn't new. But it is a project that I haven't worked on in a while, and I did recently buy the yarn I'll be using to finish it up, so the project feels new. Thus it is yet another symptom of my current bout of Startitis.

The shrug is coming along very nicely. The second sleeve is done and I'm just finishing up the back:


(pictured here with the first sleeve so you know I'm not just recycling photos)

Not much longer and then I can start figuring out what kind of pattern I want to do to join the two sleeves at the back!

2007-May-31

When last we left this project, I was failing miserably to find more of the same yarn to have enough to finish the shrug. So lately, I've been thinking about going back to the original plan of finding some whit wool/cotton sock yarn to do the edging and some cables down the back with.

So when I went to the LYS this week, what new stock did I see? Lana Grossa wool/cotton sock yarn in solid colours, including white. HELL-o! Needless to say, I snapped it up. Now I can keep going with the shrug. I'll use the leftover white to make socks for my mom or something.

2007-Jan-23

Thank you so much, Mel...she suggested I try to get some more of the yarn I need for this project from Wool-Tyme. I don't think I'd ever heard of these people before, but you can bet I have it bookmarked now! Unfortunately, they don't sell Plymouth stuff, but it's still great to know about them. However, the biggest shout-out goes to Trico, who de-lurked to call my attention to the Sockotta sale page at Yarn Discontinued, which I am almost POSITIVE is the place where I thought I'd seen the Sockotta on sale! You doll, you, thank you so much! Unfortunately, none of the colours on sale are the ones I need, but at least I can put that ghost of "I know I saw it somewhere" to rest. Merci.

Unfortunately, all this means I am still short the yarn I need for this project, but I can't tell you how appreciative I am for the help. You guys rock.

2007-Jan-17

So I called the LYS where my MIL bought the yarn, to see if they still had any left in the same dyelot. Nope. They don't even have the same YARN any more. A thousand curses.

Now here's the thing...I'm almost positive that I saw Sockotta on sale online SOMEWHERE within the last two or three weeks. I just can't remember where. I thought it was Yarn Forward, but I checked, and...no. Maybe WEBS? Nope. Elann? Nuh-uh.

Of course, even if I could find the place I saw the sale, there's no guarantee that the dyelot of the new ball will match closely with what I've got now.

Sigh.

So I've put this project away for a little bit. I need to regroup.

2007-Jan-11

I knitted to the halfway point of the shrug (i.e. one sleeve plus half of the prescribed width of the back), and then started weighing yarn. On the half-shrug was about 52g of yarn. Left in the ball was about 43g of yarn.

Screwed. As I suspected.

Just to confirm exactly how well and truly I was screwed, I started winding up what yarn I had left in the ball, counting very precisely how many more colour stripes I had left to go. (This is one of the advantages of self-striping yarn - if you wind up the remaining yarn and count the number of dye pattern repeats, then compare it to what you've already knitted, you will know precisely how much more knitting you can get out of the remaining yarn.)

Result: I was short of another half-shrug by exactly six stripes.

DH recommended that I rip the shrug back to the start of the back, and redo it with fewer stitches. Now, I am not really familiar with the three-dimensional physics of shrugs, but my instincts told me that this would result in a really dumbass-looking article of clothing. So, no.

I was starting to think about whether my daughter would appreciate a shrug with 3/4 sleeves when my dad (I was at my parents' place at the time) suggested that I rip the shrug back to the point where I'd used up half the yarn, then knit another almost-half shrug, and then somehow join them at the back. He mentioned grommets - I had visions of a shrug joined at the back with elaborate ribbon criss-crossings and started to think about how that could be possible, given that I also needed to do a ribbed edging all around the shrug opening. (Using some other kind of yarn, of course.)

And then...it hit me.

I will fill in the missing inch-and-a-half or so down the middle of the shrug's back with a strip worked perpendicularly to the two pieces of the shrug's back...just like a shoulder strap on a gansey. That will still let me do the ribbed edging all around the shrug opening, which I will do in the same yarn (which I will have to buy) as the inch-and-a-half wide strip. And the strip will be worked in some kind of nifty cable pattern that I haven't figured out yet.

I shall go to all this trouble because, dammit, this yarn needs to be made into a shrug for my kid. The colours suit her perfectly and will bring out the colour of her eyes. I will go to great lengths to make this shrug out of this yarn happen for her. It shouldn't be too hard to find a small ball of complimentary cotton/wool sock yarn to use for the strip and the edging. Right?

Although...now that I've typed that...I suppose another alternative would be to get a second ball of the striping sock yarn and make Baby Legs out of the leftovers.

Damn. Now I'm all undecided.

Although I suspect the decision will be made for me when I am unable to find the self-striping yarn in the same dyelot.

Hm.

Oh, well, I'll figure it out later. In the meantime, here's what I've got so far...

2007-Jan-5

Wednesday night, DH and I polished off our suppers before DD, so I told her I was going to go to the basement and do laundry while she finished eating.

"But Mummy," she said, "can you knit at the table with me and THEN go do laundry?"

Well. Twist my arm, eh? I completely abandoned the laundry plan and brought the shrug project out instead. At that point, there were 70 stitches on the sleeve, and I tried it on her arm: pretty darn tight. So I kept knitting and increasing until I had 74 stitches, and tried it again: not bad, but it could really do with some more ease. Last night I got to 76 and tried it on her again this morning: still not quite loose enough for my taste. But I think I'll have to stop at 78 or I won't have a hope in hell of finishing this thing with just the one ball of yarn. (As it is, I'm probably completely screwed already. But time and more knitting will tell.)

Naturally, she's really curious about what I could be making, but I'm trying to keep her in the dark as much as possible to retain a bit of the element of surprise.

2007-Jan-2

A few days after Christmas I went through the entire Knitting Pattern-a-Day : 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar that I got from my MIL to see what patterns were in it. Unsurprisingly, it's a mixed bag. Some of them are kinda bad. Some of them are fine but not to my taste. Some of them are nice. And some of them are really good.

One of the patterns I really liked was 'The Girlfriend Shrug' - it takes a sock weight yarn (the idea is to use self-patterning stuff in girly colours) and ranges from sizes 2-3 to...um...I'm not sure, about 8-9? It is super-cute, and would be a really nifty thing to pack in the diaper bag during the summer as something to throw around DD's shoulders if she gets a bit chilly in the afternoon/evening.

So here I am, liking this pattern very much, whilst simultaneously being in possession of 100g of self-patterning sock yarn in a cotton/wool blend (with a wee bit of nylon), dyed in colours that would look outstanding on my kid. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Sorry, mom. I'll make you socks out of something else.

The only snag is that I don't think the 100g is going to be enough. For one thing, I checked the label, and there is much less yardage in this ball of yarn than in 100g of my usual wool/nylon blend sock yarn (which I assume is due to the cotton content - cotton must be heavier than wool by volume). So I'm screwed there right off the bat. Secondly, I did a rough guess as to how many stitches I can get out of a full 100g of wool/nylon blend sock yarn, vs. a rough guess as to how many stitches would be in the 4-5 year size of this shrug...and I'm about 4000 stitches short. This screws me even more.

But what the hell. Me being me, I cast on anyway.



I'm so doomed.

I calculated that I might be able to make it if I narrow the sleeve width by about 16%. Would such sleeves still fit my kid? I'll have to check to make sure (I haven't gotten around to asking her to try putting her arm through the sleeve-in-progress yet, which is why the project is temporarily stalled). But even with this change, I could still easily run out of yarn.

Who knows what will happen? It's like Russian Roulette, but with a girly shrug.

Stay tuned. High drama ahead.

2006-Dec-26

The Sockotta yarn I got for Christmas has a significant amount of cotton content, which means it would probably work quite well for my mom's sensitive skin. Plus, I think she'd dig the colours. It's going to be a bit of a wrench, giving her these socks, because I really love the colourway - green and purple and turquoisy-blue with little white bits. Sigh. But my mom would benefit most from the cotton content, so I'm just going to have to suck it up.

Labels: girlfriend