Tubey

Recipient: Moi
Designer: Cassie Rovitti
Pattern: Tubey
Source: Knitty
Completed: September 7, 2007
Colours: Bottle green
Yarn: Alpaca Indicieta, 100% alpaca worsted weight
Completed status: I love it! Pictures:

completed


'in action', from the front


'in action', from the back


'in action', from the side (this one actually displays the most accurate rendition of the colour of the yarn)

2007-Sep-8

I finished it!

This is a great design. It's clever, fast to make and makes my weeny little mammaries (small even when milk-filled as they are these days) look like big honking gazongas.

As previously mentioned, I did have to alter the instructions a bit to make it fit me. I cast on ten fewer stitches than the XS size said to so that my arms wouldn't swim in the sleeves. And in order to avoid flashing the world, I sewed the body further up the front about two additional inches on each side. Finally, I shortened up the sleeves by about two inches so the cuffs didn't cover up my hands. It is a lovely sweater and I expect to enjoy wearing it.

2007-Aug-20

The knitting on this sweater is now complete. I have cast off and tried it on, and it's verrry revealing across the chest. You can see a great deal of bra, and if I were to eliminate that problem by removing the bra, a simple slight accidental pulling down of the front of the sweater would, shall we say, begin a rather thrilling game of peek-a-boo. I am definitely going to have to sew the front up along the sides of the shrug part to 'modest things up'. Some additional sewing around the armpits to stop the stitches from gaping from stress is probably also called for.

2007-Aug-5

I'm almost finished the body! Just an inch or so more to go, I think.

2007-Jul-26

The body is really coming along:

2007-Jul-19

Another victim of my health-related downtime, I don't think I even have an inch of the body ribbing done yet. But things should pick up soon now that I seem to be on the mend.

2007-Jul-17

I brought this out at my parents' place last night, finished the sleeve and started the body cast-on. In the car on the way home, I finished the cast-on and am now working the ribbing of the body:



I'm very excited about how this is shaping up (pun intended). My cousin and her husband were interested in the construction of the sweater last night, and were very impressed with its ingeniousness when I showed them. I cannot deny that it impresses the crap out of me, too. That Cassie Rovitti sure is clever.

2007-Jul-15

This hasn't seen a whole lot of action in the past two days, but I have at least gotten started on ball #4 and have increased for the bell sleeve.

2007-Jul-13

Well, I ripped out everything I'd done and started over with a cast on of 40 stitches instead of 50. Three days later, we are back to having three balls knitted up. I have a completed first sleeve and a second sleeve that's probably about a third of the way down my arm. The fit is much, much better.

2007-Jul-9

It didn't take me long to decide what I was going to do with the bottle green alpaca I bought last week. And once the decision was made, well...



I am weak. 'Delayed gratification' is not a phrase in my vocabulary, evidently.

This project has also made me realise how fast I can knit when I don't use thin yarn, small needles, and intricate motifs. I burned through three of the skeins in three days of work. (There are ten in all.) This sweater is moving along ridiculously fast.

Unfortunately, I think I'm going to rip it all back and start over, because the sleeves are looser than I want them to be. On the model, the sleeves are shown fairly snug against the arms, and even though I'm following the XS instructions, my arms are kind of swimming in the sleeve I've done (i.e. I need to reduce the circumference by about 10 stitches). Since the number of stitches in the sleeve is directly related to the number of stitches in the upper back of the sweater, I also have to rip out what I've done for the back. However, this doesn't distress me too much, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, this is a very fun knit, so ripping it back just means I get to spend more time on it. Secondly, it's not like I'm ripping out a hundred hours of knitting time or anything - I don't think it took me more than ten to fifteen hours to get this far. And lastly, it's summer. It's not like I need a sweater rightthisveryminute.

Plans to frog aside, DH supports this new project wholeheartedly because the sweater is form-hugging and he is therefore looking forward to drooling when I put it on. (He's so sweet - we'll have been together for ten years this coming New Year's, and he is absolutely unswerving from the opinion that I am ridiculously hot.) I expect that he will be considerably more distressed when I frog back to the beginning than I am.

For my part, I support this new project because, well, it's for me. Also, I agree with DH that it will flatter my shape, plus, I suspect it will be easy to nurse in. (Obviously a serious consideration for clothes these days.)