Dude...This Took Forever (Part 2)

The Dude Sweater saga continues (see part one last week)...

Once I had the sweater steeked and the button band all picked up, I decided to teach myself another new trick for the buttonholes. I tried them as written in the pattern, and they looked sloppy. I also knew I wanted to do a double button band (with a facing on the backside), so I turned to Ravlery again. Enter Anna Zilboorg and her super cool grafted buttonholes. 

I ended up buying this video to teach myself, but Whistling Girl Knits also has a nice tutorial that looks like it would work well. These button bands and holes took a little extra time to execute, but they are so good. They don't stretch out and they really add a nice jacket-like quality to the finished sweater. I will be using this method again.

I used a few other ninja techniques to make sure this sweater tuned out just right. The recipient is quite tall, so we wanted to make sure the sleeves were long enough. It can be hard to get this right with a bottom-up yoked sweater, so I used a provisional cast on for the sleeves and waited until it was all done to pick up the stitches and knit the ribbed cuffs. 

This allowed me to get the length just right and use a tubular bind off  in the round to make it look really clean at the edge of the cuff. I like to use the crochet chain method to do the provisional cast on, but you can also just cast on with scrap yarn and then start knitting with your project yarn. The crochet method is easier to remove later, but both methods work really well.

I was also stumped about how to deal with my steeks on the inside. With my double button band, I knew I could enclose most of the steek inside the button band, but there were several inches inside the neckline that would not be included in this lovely and secure yarn sandwich. After much deliberation, I decided that I would just cast on some extra stitches while I was knitting the inside facing of the button band to create and extra little strip. It's only about 4 or 5 rows, but I tacked it down to the collar and secured it with the rest of the button band when I was done. It perfectly enclosed the steek, and you can't see it from the outside. It's a win!

I had to add a fair bit of length to the overall sweater, and I chose to do this by adding main color rows in between the motifs so they would be spread out evenly. With this much pattern and this kind of construction, it wasn't really going to work to just add length whenever I wanted to after trying it on. I had to plan ahead. I did some math to see if the over all length would be pretty close, and then I mostly hoped for the best. I ended up making a spreadsheet to keep all of my yoke decreases and patterns under control. So nerdy. The knitting spirits must have been smiling on me, because it actually worked out pretty well.

I'm still not totally thrilled with the button band. It stretches out a bit and buckles in a few places. I might have done the button band in stockinette instead, but that would not have worked with the shawl collar. Perhaps a smaller needle size for the band facing would have helped, but I'm sure not undoing it all now. Maybe I'll thread some elastic thread in a few places or add some ribbon to the facing to keep it in place. It's possible that the heavy antler buttons are not helping, but they look really cool.

So, that's the story of my epic Dude sweater. In the several months since I finished it, this sweater has seen several fishing trips, multiple campfires, and lots of chilly nights playing guitar on the porch. I feel like it is really living its best life. And my favorite thing about knitting for others is seeing my handknits worn and loved and used. It's why I spent so much time working on this and teaching myself all the new tricks!

Dude...This Took Forever

Have I told you all about this project? It's my Knitter's Dude by Andrea Rangel.

Oh man, it kind of consumed my life for several months. It is perhaps the most epic and difficult thing I have ever made, but it was worth it. I taught myself all kinds of new tricks for this one. I've been knitting since I was eight years old, so I didn't really think there were that many new tricks to learn...boy was I wrong.

I have never been a fan of catching floats when doing colorwork, especially with highly contrasting colors like I was using. So, I went to the Ravlery hive mind to figure out a better way to do the colorwork. I found a knitter who has employed a really cool technique often used in machine knitting and very clearly outlined in the It's Not About the Hat pattern. It was well worth the $6 pattern to learn the ins and outs and what-have-yous of this technique, and my contrasting yarns are invisible, even over the 24 stitch floats required for the pattern.

After many years of resisting magic loop (for reasons I don't understand), I finally caved when I started thinking about doing those patterned sleeves on double pointed needles. It's so easy and it works beautifully and I really should not have resisted for so long. I am knitting all of my socks using magic loop. Silly knitter.

The most terrifying thing I needed to learn was the steek. You know, just cutting my epic colorwork tube in half. No big deal. I used the technique outlined by Kate Davies, and it worked pretty well. I should have paid more attention to how I was doing the steek stitches while I was knitting, because a few places start to unravel. I ended up having to re-reinforce in a few areas to keep it all together, but that was pretty easy with the Cascade Eco yarn. Overall, her method is top notch and very clearly explained. I believe it was Elizabeth Zimmerman who suggests starting the steeking process with a shot of whiskey, and that might have been wise. I can highly recommend a lot of light and a steady hand, although the method I used made it very easy to see where I needed to cut.

Stay tuned for more...

Eye Candy

Do you all want to hear about my most epic project to date and all the neat tricks I learned to make it a success? If so, stay tuned! If not, too bad, I'm going to tell you anyway...

It definitely deserves one of these cute labels that I was gifted recently!

 

P.S. My fabulous hand-dyed indigo bedding come from Anna Joyce Design, a Portland artisan and author doing some beautiful and empowering stuff. Go support her!