sweetgeorgia

And it’s done!

It’s a ta da moment. The Baby Norgi — done. Fear of steeking — gone. Time to celebrate — now.

This moment was hard-won. I mean, I had to seam and rip out the sleeves THREE TIMES. I think I was jinxed! Yesterday, Liza commented “Do you even make mistakes?” and the answer is YES!

Try #1: I completely finished sewing in the first sleeve to find that I sewed it in upside down. Yes, yes, very funny. Try #2: The sleeves are different sizes because I used circs on one and DPNs on the other. In try #2, I tried seaming the larger sleeve to the smaller armhole. Hand slaps forehead. Try #3: I tried seaming the larger sleeve to the larger armhole, but did so unevenly, so it still didn’t fit. At least I learn from my mistakes.

Next time I do a steeked sweater, I will definitely:

• do a Three-Needle Bind Off to seam the shoulders together. In this sweater, I fake grafted the shoulder seams. Not the most fun I’ve ever had.
• pick up and knit the sleeves down from the body. Even though I finally go the hang of seaming the sleeves and did a pretty nice job (if I say so myself), it’s not fun either.
• be consistent — either knit everything DPNs or circs. One or the other. I didn’t realize that the needles could change my gauge so much!

Thank you Wendy for designing the perfect project to start my fair isle and steeking adventures!

Made the cut

I finally made the cut. It wasn’t as freaky as I thought it might be.

Have you seen Diana’s version? It’s beautiful.

Cutting soon.

The sleeves are done, see…

I don’t know if you can tell but the sleeve on top is bigger than the sleeve underneath. The difference? I initially used 3mm Addi’s and the magic loop technique, but I was finding that some of the stitches were getting distorted and ugly. So on the second sleeve, I decided to use 3mm Crystal Palace bamboo DPNs (which was a lot easier!) and looky, looky, I got a different gauge. Ah well. I learn the hard way.

In any case, the only thing that remains is cutting the steeks!

Blocking Baby

Blocking is genius. It takes bubbly, nasty-looking knitting and makes a beautiful smooth and even fabric…even on the backside! I wet-blocked the body of the norgi by soaking it in cool water for about a minute, blotting away the water with a towel and then pinning it to my blocking board. I steamed it very lightly so that the hem would (sort of) lie flat.

If you look closely, there’s a darker line in the background of the moose/trees picture. Why? I got curious and tried to “weave” rather than “float”. Bad idea. The woven colour tends to peek through and show on the right side. Even when the colour doesn’t show through, it’s positioned so close to the cream colour that you and kind of “see through” the cream.

Why did I try weaving? Well, traditionally in fair isle you don’t carry a colour more than an inch (7 or 9 stitches or so). In this pattern, there are some pretty long floats that I thought would look wonky, so I tried to secure the floats better by weaving. I don’t know if Norwegian patterns have this rule against long floats, but in any case I won’t be weaving anymore.

I started the tiny tiny sleeve and I’m using magic loop rather than DPNs. I think the magic loop may be distorting the fabric a little because the circumference is so tiny. Some DPNs might be on the shopping list now.

Baby Norgi

The Baby Norgi is on its way! I’ve done nearly 6 inches of the body — but at 36 sts and 40 rows per 4 inches, it’s taking a while. Yes, I know I’m knitting tighter than the recommended gauge in the pattern, but I’m just doing this to learn the steeking stuff — I’m sure I can find a tiny baby to wear this tiny sweater!