I’m Baaaaack

I’ve been meaning to come back to blogging for quite some time now.  In all honesty, I never meant to take a blogging break.  Life just got in the way and I got out of the rhythm of posting – the longer I was away the harder it has been to come back and resume writing.

Since I’ve been away just a few things have happened:

  • My step-dad got cancer – and then recovered and is now cancer free (YAY!)  Biggie I know – but it’s all good now.
  • I have a pretty, new front yard that my mom and I landscaped last fall
  • I have pink hair
  • I am officially sewing with knit fabric
  • Made it through a totally cold winter in my house – the avg temp was like 60, sometimes 55, but never higher than 68.
  • I’m planning a trip to Paris (Can’t even wait!!!)
  • Oh… and I learnt how to use the sawzall (reciprocating saw).  It’s the important things…. lol

While I may have left my blog unattended since *shudder* October, I have NOT stopped sewing or knitting.  I’ve been sewing and knitting all winter long and have quite a backlog of projects to share.

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One of the main things that prompted me to post today is my newly finished sweater that I knit along with Meg and Michelle, the Beekman Tavern Pullover.

Beekman Tavern Pullover

Being made in worsted weight yarn, this is one of the faster knits that I made this winter.  I think I was able to knit this puppy up in 2.5-3 weeks, which is pretty speedy for me.

As you can tell, I highly modified this sweater from the original, fisherman-style sweater, that it was supposed to be.

rhinebeck_sweater

I knew I wouldn’t be happy with a long, positive-ease sweater so I did some modifications to be a waist-length and included some bust shaping (side seam increases).

Beekman Tavern Pullover

Traditionally, I haven’t been successful with making any raglan-style sleeves.  I have a very short armscye height and narrow shoulders, coupled with thicker upper arms.  What ends up happening is that I look like I have mega armpit fat in my sweater – it just folds at the armpit all wrong.  (See my Ingenue here).

But I think I finally solved the problem….

Beekman Tavern Pullover Armscye Detail

I make the upper bodice the height I need and generally stick with the smallest size in this area for width – again bodice only.  But on the sleeves, I have to do the raglan decreases much faster from the armpit to the middle of the armscye on the front only – this gets rid of the extra sleeve width to blend into my narrow shoulders.  This along with casting off more stitches than required at my underarms, helps.  I do my decreases on every row for the first 25 rows or so, on the front bodice only.  It seems like a lot of decreases – and it is – but it’s what works for me, and you’d never tell the decreases are crazy from the pictures, it just looks like it fits.

Other Mods:

My center front & back panels are narrower than the original pattern, as is the moss stitching on the side panels.

Beekman Tavern Pullover

I raised the neckline significantly.  I actually knew I wanted a higher neckline, but I just winged it as I was knitting and didn’t take any notes.  What I do know is that I did 2 sets of short rows in the back of the bodice to raise the back neckline.  I think it was somewhere around 16 rows that I added to bring the back up higher than the front.  I just kept knitting and decreasing the neckline until I liked the height of it in the front, then went and added short rows at the end to bring the back up to where it felt comfortable.

Beekman Tavern Pullover

One of the best things about knitting with these gals (besides the fun we have…) is that all of our projects turn out completely different.  I tend to knit my sweaters with a bit of vintage flair, even if it’s a modern pattern.  Michelle’s are much more modern but always uses a new yarn that I’ve never heard of.

Michelle's Beekman Tavern Pullover

And Meg, well… she went and turned this sweater into a mini sweater dress.  How cool is that?!

Meg's Beekman Tavern Pullover

I used Miss Babs 100% merino, light worsted weight yarn in the Forever colorway for my pullover.  It’s yarn that I’ve had in my stash for 4+ years now that I bought at Stitches Midwest.  With any new knitting project that I’ve made this winter, I’ve been attempting to use yarn in my stash instead of going out and purchasing something new.  Since it’s light worsted, I had to modify the stitch count due to a gauge difference.  But I was going to have to do that anyways since I made my sweater with negative ease instead of positive ease.

Beekman Tavern Pullover

Location-Location-Location

The three of us wanted to go fabric shopping together after the photo shoot, so I immediately thought of this location to take our photos.  There is a large wall of rocks (concrete or whatever) that I pass on my route to the fabric store, on the north side of Chicago (edge of Evanston), right along Sheridan Road.  Chicagoans probably know exactly what I’m talking about, yeah?!  I’ve always wanted to stop here, but just never did.

Beekman Tavern Pullover

Unfortunately, it was terribly cold and windy when we were out there, we did the quickest photoshoot we’ve ever done.  It was a great location for the fisherman style sweaters, as we were right along the lakefront – but not so good for the wind/cold factor.  Ahh well… I’m sure I’ll make a point to stop here again when the winter breaks and sun is out to warm all of the rocks.

Beekman Tavern Pullover

Sorry for the long absence, I have tons of projects to catch you up on so I’ll be sure to be back again soon.  :)

P.S.  More images on Flickr.

In: Knitting

Blogger for 6 years and counting, I am a passionate creator who loves to tinker.

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