And then (pause for dramatic effect) the pattern arrived Monday night. And my hopes and dreams were abandoned. The gauge for the pattern as written is 15 stitches and 20 rows over 4 inches and the Rowan Denim is 20 stitches and 24 (shrinking to 32) rows over 4 inches. This would bring the sweater in at a trim 33" which is somewhere between 8" and 10" bigger around than I would want it to be for the Boy. No way no how, based on the schematic, will this going to be the cake walk I had happily lead myself down the primrose path into believing it would be.
WAH! WAH! WAH!
OK. Enough. Dry your tears and get it together, Woman.
Now I really have to work if I want this to become a reality. And I do want this sweater to exist in the real world. I desperately want to be one of those knitters who can create what the mind's eye sees. DESperately.
Now I really have to work if I want this to become a reality. And I do want this sweater to exist in the real world. I desperately want to be one of those knitters who can create what the mind's eye sees. DESperately.
So to work.
First, what makes the Urban Aran so great looking? What elements need to be reproduced to at least elude to the Urban Aran? Obviously an intricate center cable that can be easily divided into a cardigan and also worked up the sleeves. The longer arms and slim cut. Wide ribbing. And those nifty diagonal cables. I think the diagonals are really where it is at for this sweater.
So these are the elements I need to be able to incorporate into a sweater for the Boy to end up with something reminiscent of the Urban Aran Cardigan in Denim for a size 4T. To start, I found, at my local library through inter-library loan, the Rowan Junior
book. There are two possible starting points for me here in terms of zip-up cardigans - one with cables on either side of zipper and one written for Denim, which will help take some of the math out of the thing for me.
I also found pattern on knitty.com which could offer me something to work with - the gauge for the "boy" version of the sweater is the pre-washed gauge for the Denim and the "girl" version gauge is the post-washing gauge. This is a ribbed zipper cardigan. I see possibilities (which is better, I would imagine, than seeing dead people. At least in this context.). Also, this pattern offers me the (probably false) hope that my original plan to just knit the Urban Aran as written with the smaller yarn without having to do any math since the chest on the finished 4T size is 34" (and if I did the calculation correctly, the Urban Aran would be 33" as written in the Denim).
Also, my friend Mary suggested graphing the whole thing on knitter's graph paper. So I've printed out a bunch of pages at a 1/1 scale and once I have read the three or four patterns and processed the information, I can start graphing!
More to come.
Read Part I of this adventure here. Read the next installment here.
First, what makes the Urban Aran so great looking? What elements need to be reproduced to at least elude to the Urban Aran? Obviously an intricate center cable that can be easily divided into a cardigan and also worked up the sleeves. The longer arms and slim cut. Wide ribbing. And those nifty diagonal cables. I think the diagonals are really where it is at for this sweater.
So these are the elements I need to be able to incorporate into a sweater for the Boy to end up with something reminiscent of the Urban Aran Cardigan in Denim for a size 4T. To start, I found, at my local library through inter-library loan, the Rowan Junior
book. There are two possible starting points for me here in terms of zip-up cardigans - one with cables on either side of zipper and one written for Denim, which will help take some of the math out of the thing for me. I also found pattern on knitty.com which could offer me something to work with - the gauge for the "boy" version of the sweater is the pre-washed gauge for the Denim and the "girl" version gauge is the post-washing gauge. This is a ribbed zipper cardigan. I see possibilities (which is better, I would imagine, than seeing dead people. At least in this context.). Also, this pattern offers me the (probably false) hope that my original plan to just knit the Urban Aran as written with the smaller yarn without having to do any math since the chest on the finished 4T size is 34" (and if I did the calculation correctly, the Urban Aran would be 33" as written in the Denim).
Also, my friend Mary suggested graphing the whole thing on knitter's graph paper. So I've printed out a bunch of pages at a 1/1 scale and once I have read the three or four patterns and processed the information, I can start graphing!
More to come.
Read Part I of this adventure here. Read the next installment here.
No comments:
Post a Comment