It’s happened to all of us. (It happens far too often to me.) We finish a project, and we don’t love it the way we had hoped. It may not be a disaster, but it’s not what we wanted and so it gets shoved to the back of a closet to be forgotten. With knitting, that’s really a shame because it can take so long to knit a sweater or shawl or whatever.
One of my most recent meh projects was my Summer Solstice sweater. I liked the pattern and I liked the yarn (Fibre Company’s Arcadia in the color Summer Sweet). I didn’t like the result. I had made it just a little too short (the result of not having purchased enough yarn because when I bought it I wasn’t sure what I wanted to make out of it). A reminder of what it looked like on Lucy:
See? Nothing “wrong” with it at all. But it hit me at unflattering spot and I just felt dowdy in it. Susan kept telling me to fix it. I resisted because to lengthen it required finding yarn in a different dye lot that looked plausible, removing the collar (because it is added last), knitting the additional length, and then reknitting the now even longer collar. Le sigh.
I finally decided to go ahead. I found three skeins of yarn that looked close. To be on the safe side, I chose to reuse the collar yarn for the additional length; I knew that the dye lot difference would be less noticeable if I only knit the collar out of the new yarn. So, I removed the collar, winding it into a hank/skein. I wetted it, and hung it up to dry. (That step was to remove the kinks in the yarn.) Using just that salvaged yarn, I was able to add five inches in length to the sweater. Here is my “new” Summer Solstice. (Forgive the poor quality of the photos; it is SO humid in Washington today that my camera lens kept fogging up when I went outside and it was very difficult to get any pictures.) You can see how much longer it is by looking at the hem in relation to the sleeves, even though I added an inch or so to them, too, as long as I was at it.
I think the difference in dye lots is virtually undetectable. Yay!
My other reclamation project was not a knitting one. A couple of years ago, I purchased a T-shirt meant to be worn as a tunic. I really love the color and the pattern on it, but it was too long. Too short — too long — why can’t anything ever be perfect? I had ordered this online so hadn’t been sure of the length when I bought it. It looked stupid. My sewing machine doesn’t have a serger, and I didn’t feel like spending more $$ on this thing.
Well, the other day I thought I’ll just cut it off and do a decorative hem by hand. It might work. And it did! I used an embroidery stitch in a thread color that I thought would work with the pattern.
Good for you! BTW, the easy way to get the kinks out of the previously knit yarn is to slowly wave it through kettle steam, so you don’t need to wash and dry it. This also unkinks circular needles.
Comment by Katie K — July 7, 2013 @ 4:23 pm
Oh yeh, much better. And I remember seeing that yarn on your blog first and fell in love with it. I had never seen it before. Love Summer Solstice, I have one I am bringing to Camp out of Chris from Briar Rose Fibers, who attends camp.
Comment by Penny — July 7, 2013 @ 5:28 pm
I love these stories. It often takes me a while when I’ve got a project like these – first to figure out what I can do to fix what isn’t right and then to get the oomph to do it. Good for you! My last “meh” project was passed on to my daughter . . . she looks much cuter in it than I did!
Comment by Pam — July 7, 2013 @ 6:26 pm
Wow! What a difference that little bit of extra length made to the sweater. I love it!
Comment by sue — July 8, 2013 @ 1:40 am
Brilliant! You give us all hope.
Comment by Rebecca — July 8, 2013 @ 3:08 am
Whew, since the pattern was knit from the top down, no grafting involved! (I’m sitting with Gradient #2 on the needles awaiting grafting seed stitch with dread).
Comment by Betty — July 8, 2013 @ 10:05 am
The sweater looks so much better. It was worth the time to do it. I am really impressed by your t-shirt fix. I am going to have to try that out for myself. Thanks for sharing!
Comment by Carolyn — July 8, 2013 @ 10:25 am
You are amazing! I love Peruvian Connection, time to order something else to keep the catalog coming! Their catalogs create my inspirations. You have followed their take and made it better. Gorgeous.
Comment by Patti, oldgoatwoman on Ravelry — July 8, 2013 @ 1:04 pm
OK, I am inspired — I had the same result with my Summer Solstice, and it has been banned for several years. So I will suck it up and remove the collar, etc. I do have plenty of yarn, however…
Comment by Mary — July 9, 2013 @ 7:16 am
Both projects look like they were meant to be. Kudos to your for doing them. I think there are few things harder than returning to a project once it has been stamped ‘done’. Not that I’d know…
Comment by Robby — July 9, 2013 @ 12:40 pm
I’m so glad this turned out so well. I think you’ll wear it a lot. And you were able to find “matching” yarn! Sometimes the only choice is contrasting yarn. A black collar, for example.
Julie in San Diego
Comment by Julie in San Diego — July 10, 2013 @ 2:48 am
I am always blown away at your knitting skills, both of you. The sweater looks amazing and I hope you enjoy wearing it on chilly fall and winter days ahead.
Comment by Annie C — July 15, 2013 @ 7:53 am
Fabulous fixes on both projects! Very well done on your Summer Solstice; I will keep this in mind if I make the sweater, as I prefer longer sweaters to cover “the caboose”. Glad you were able to find the extra yarn, and it does blend beautifully. Love the creative embroidered hem on the shirt!
Comment by Michele V — July 16, 2013 @ 12:14 pm