theraineysisters knitting and so much more

Always it’s Spring and everyone’s in love and flowers pick themselves.  e.e. cummings

I love flowers and yoke sweaters are all the rage, so how could I resist knitting Caitlin Hunter’s Birkin?  I couldn’t.   I did make a few changes because Susan and I rarely leave well enough alone.

A long time ago, I saw another sweater with an intriguing hem:  Colors for a Cloudy Day, designed by yellowcosmo.  I added a similar hem to my Birkin, although I ended up constructing mine in a different way.  (More detailed explanation of how I made the hem is below.)  I also knit full length instead of bracelet length sleeves.  The yarn I used is Brooklyn Tweed’s Loft.  The main color is Fossil, which I already had in my stash.  (Score!).  The other colors I used are Artifact, Flannel, Hayloft, and Thistle.

The photos I have right now are not great.  I’m in Tucson on a family vacation.  When I first arrived, having just finished my Birkin, it was in the 90s.  Too hot to wear wool, even a wool as lightweight as  Loft.  It has cooled off, but it is so windy I can’t get good pictures.  (The hair! the hair!)  At one point my Birkin actually blew away.  It’s a shame because this sweater looks better on.  Unfortunately, my mannequin is back in Boulder, so these photos will have to do.

The fair isle hem in Colors for a Cloudy day was shaped by short rows — the hem itself and the “cut out” curve.  This is a top down sweater.  I made my cutout the way I’d knit a neckline from the bottom up.  I used a slope bind off, eliminating stitches as I worked back and forth instead of in the round.  When the cut out was finished, I had live stitches except where I’d bound off for the shape.  I picked stitches up there and then did an i-cord bind off all the way around.

Here’s a bad selfie that shows what the sweater looked like just before the bind off.

My initial plan was to pick up all the way around for the fair isle part of the hem and shape the inside of the cut out with short rows.  (This was the method used by yellowcosmo.)  I also planned the hem to be a slightly deeper color than Fossil.  I tried my idea with Faded Postcard, a pale purplish pink.  I didn’t like how it turned out for several reasons.  First, despite going down several needle sizes, the knitting looked sloppy — the short rows distorted the fabric.  Second, although Postcard looked nice next to the sweater, it looked too muddy when knit up.  See?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ripped it out and redid it in the Fossil.  First, I cast on for the widest part of the curved opening with a provisional cast on.  I then worked the floral pattern, shaping it into a curve through decreases at the side.  When it was the right size for the opening, I picked up around the rest of the hem, activating the provisional cast on stitches when I came to them.  I then knit the leaf pattern.  In other words, the floral pattern was knit bottom up and the leaf section was knit top down.  After I bound off for the ribbing, I sewed the curved part of my fair isle pattern down under the i-cord.  Clear as mud, right?