theraineysisters knitting and so much more

February 11, 2007

From Susan — Can you stand another…

Filed under: Knitting Tips,Oregon Cardigan — lv2knit @ 11:02 am

…post about my &^%$##%&*&%$ Oregon sleeve?  Oh, good!

Which would you rather deal with (in terms of weaving in ends), this:

Bodyinside.jpg

or this?

Sleeveseamlineinside.jpg

My thoughts exactly!  When you knit a fair isle cardigan, you join new colors at the center front.  The ends get cut off in the “cutting the steek” phase, so you don’t need to worry about them.  However, for pullovers and sleeves, there is no cutting so there is no trimming so the ends need to be dealt with somehow.  Some people simply tie the ends together and trim them short.  Others weave them in.  I WAS a weaver, until my last fair isle when I became a partial splicer.

With Rona I spliced the colors that had gradual changes — you can see from the picture that some changed like water colors and other color changes were very abrupt.  For abrupt changes, you can do a Russian Join, but that can be very time consuming.  I wish I had taken the time!  When I turned my sleeve inside out, it looked like the picture above — LOTS of ends!!

This time I am splicing every color change, even if it is somewhat abrupt.  I don’t care if the splices look like a candy cane!  I made a very conscious decision to not give a rip.  Here is what the under sleeve looks like:

Sleeveseamline001.jpg

I don’t think you can tell that the colors are spliced.  So, I am very happy now and will be REALLY happy when this puppy gets done, if that ever happens ;).  The dog hair that shows up in every picture comes free of charge.

9 Comments »

  1. Good decision, imho. It’s the UNDERsleeve, for heaven’s sake. Anyone who quibbles with the looks of it is getting too far into your personal space anyway 🙂

    And what’s a objet d’knit without a little dog or cat hair? Unloved, that’s what it is, unloved.

    Comment by kmkat — February 11, 2007 @ 1:26 pm

  2. I used to do only Russian joins until I discovered I could cut down the time it took me to do sleeves by nearly 50% if I just tied the ends 😉

    Comment by Marina — February 11, 2007 @ 5:27 pm

  3. The sleeve looks so nice, it wouldn’t matter if you HAD decided to care about any “candy canes”.

    Dog hair and people hair come free of charge with almost anything I’ve knit. It’s how you know it’s hand made 😉

    Comment by Pam — February 11, 2007 @ 7:10 pm

  4. If you need some extra dog hair, let me know – I have an abundant supply of German shepherd undercoat I can send your way!

    Beautiful sweater, and beautiful Bohus, BTW!

    Comment by Dianna — February 11, 2007 @ 7:20 pm

  5. I started my hair on fire tonight; maybe I should take some of the extra dog hair lying around. (Fortunately, we have plenty here).

    Comment by surly — February 12, 2007 @ 12:13 am

  6. Sally, you are LOSING it! What on earth is going on with you? Remember when I set the cat on fire?

    Comment by lv2knit — February 12, 2007 @ 8:30 am

  7. The sleeve looks great. It never occurred to me to splice the yarns. Indeed, all that weaving in of ends is what has put me off of doing another.

    Comment by Gale — February 12, 2007 @ 9:09 am

  8. I tie the ends myself, but boy – your undersleeve looks good!

    Comment by Charm — February 12, 2007 @ 11:31 pm

  9. Hi Susan,

    Great Oregon sweater!

    I have a cool trick for splicing Shetland yarns that won’t entail a barberpole effect when the colors are drastically changed. I call it a Russian join spit-splice. Yes, thin down the old and new yarns for about 4″, then overlap them 2″ from each end and fold them back on themselves, ala Russian join, then spit-splice tog. If you line up the thinner sections, you’ll end up with the same thickness throughout, plus the cleaner join of the Russian method.

    At first I worried about plotting the exact length to set this up so that the color change occurred at the change of round marker, but then realized that it really doesn’t matter too much if it’s off by a st or 3. It actually camouflages the end of rnd a bit more, since all the color changes don’t occur at the set point.

    I can’t remember if I came up with this or I learned it at Meg’s Camp. Probably a little of each.

    Joan in Eugene, OR

    Comment by Joan Schrouder — November 18, 2007 @ 1:58 pm

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