sweetgeorgia

End of Electra

What can I say? This vest was fun, fast and easy to knit. I’m wearing it today and just love it. Here are my finishing photos:

This is the top edge of the vest — I didn’t bind off just yet. I just strung the stitches onto some waste yarn so that I could sew and cut the steeks first. You can see the stitch markers indicating where the steek stitches start and end.

Yeah, there were a ton of ends to weave in, even with knitting in the round. But maybe a quarter of the number of ends compared to knitting flat and then seaming. Whoohoo.

Just like with the baby norgi, I machine stitched down between steek stitches 1 & 2 and 3 & 4. Then again down the middle of stitch 2 and 3…

Then I cut straight down the middle between stitches 2 and 3… Easy peasy.

I couldn’t resist the lovely window light coming through the sheers in our bedroom. The vest is kind of cropped, so there’s a bit more shirt sticking out than I’m used to. But I love it!

Electra Vest from Rowan 38

• Pattern: Rowan 38
• Yarn: Rowan Kid Silk Haze, Felted Tweed and Yorkshire Tweed in the specified colours
• Needles: US 7 / 4.5mm and US 3 / 3.25mm Addi Turbos
• Changes: Rather than knitting flat pieces, I knit this in the round and steeked the neckline and armholes. I added 4 stitches for each steek. The shoulders were joined with a 3-needle bindoff. Yippee, no sewing!
• Finished Measurements: 34″ size

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.