Friday, December 26, 2008

FINISHED!

The cardigan is done!

I was warned by the daughter of a very seasoned German knitter that zippers were hell. She'd done one once -- 20 years ago -- and swore them off forever. Hmmmph.

With lots of perturbation, I pored over online tutorials here, here, here and here. I ended up with a hybrid of links 2 & 4, mostly, and remembered many things from my sewing days. First, I tacked the stripes together with small pieces of red yarn. I then whipstitch-basted the fronts together with the silver yarn, being careful to stay in the same row for an even edge.

Turned the sweater inside out, then pinned the zipper -- face down -- onto the flaps from the front pieces. I then whipstitched the edge of the zipper to the edge of the front flaps & then basted down the centers of the zipper on each side. The pins came out, I turned the sweater rightside-out again, and then came the moment of truth of removing the yarn basting.

Beautiful! The stripes matched! I spent several hours yesterday then going over the basting and backstitching the zipper in place by hand. Not going to take it near a sewing machine after all that work...

The sweater is warm and cozy, and the lengthening adjustments I made seem to have worked perfectly, albeit a little bunchy in the sleeves. It's not been blocked yet, though, so that can probably be remedied. The body, however, is bespoke!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Ok, this is good.



I can confidently say that this sweater is going to fit. One sleeve attached and seamed all the way through. It fits!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Finishing Up


Ande was kind enough to take a few photos as I joined the shoulder seams and started the collar on the cardigan. These were Sunday night -- the collar is now finished, and I'm sewing on the sleeves. Yay, mattress stitch.