theraineysisters knitting and so much more

To all of the naysayers (and you know who you are!), I am making some headway on the Aran Wrap.  It may be finished this week.  I don’t know what the deal was with those $##@@%^%^ sleeves, but it took 5 weeks for me to get them done 🙁 .  The peplum has 300 sts and seems like it is going faster:

I tried the lil sucker on and it seems to be working.  It fits just like the picture on Angela’s blog and should be a cute and warm fall/winter jacket.  I will probably need to do 3-3.5 repeats of the peplum instead of 2.5, in order to get to my derriere.  I picked up 16 fewer sts than called for so it would be symmetrical — the larger size has an exact number of repeats whereas the smaller size has an additional half repeat thrown in so the first cable is worked once more at the end of the row.  This creates the symmetry.  I maybe should have ADDED 16 sts, but too late now!  I am getting excited to get it done, which means it may actually happen!  Woo Hoo!

I know the Yarn Harlot does not need me linking to her to enlist readers ( 😉 ) but I am going to link to her post today called A Coffee Story.  I laughed out loud! 

The leaves are peaking right now so it is beautiful here.

PS to Alison: Here are some pictures from my morning walk with doggie to the river lot:

Our bench on the Mississippi

Views from the bench:

Walking home:

Sleeves that is!  This is a typical case of “the bloom being off the rose.”  When I started the Aran Wrap, I was involved, engaged, enthused, etc.  Now I am bored, resentful, unsure.  This happens with almost every project, because knitting is too slow to finish anything while you are still interested. 

The construction is interesting, as we have already mentioned.  There are a series of short rows to create a sleeve cap.  Around 24 short rows!  Over moss, garter, twisted sts, reverse stockinette.  It is not pretty!  My short rows look like crap, to be perfectly honest.  The instructions are brief to non-existent, so you are pretty much on your own.

The length of my sleeves appears to be correct.  The beauty of the top-down knitting of the sleeves is that I can add an inch or two if necessary once it is done.  The center back section is SHORT!  It comes down to my brastrap in back — in Angela’s blog pictures, it goes to her waist.  Then you pick up and knit the peplum, which is 9.5 inches.  Even with aggressive blocking, I do not see how that will ever come close to covering my bubble butt ample rear end (note to readers: my butt looks like the one in Sally’s picture with the planter, only I bring my own planter!).  You can knit the peplum longer, but then the sides also get WAY longer.  Thank goodness I a) bought a ton of yarn, and b) am almost 6 feet tall so the sides will not be dragging on the ground!

So the Aran Wrap is simmering ever so slowly on the back burner.  My knitting is in a funk due to forces beyond my control (i.e., life) and fall is in the air.  It is beautiful in Minnesota in the fall.  We are right across the street from the Mississippi River and so I’ll share a picture of the park across the way once the leaves get really pretty.  In the meantime, here is a picture of our giant crab apple tree.  It is a variety that holds its fruit through the winter, and it is laden with apples right now.

PS in Response to Karen’s question about omitting the short rows in the sleeve: I think you could do the sleeves without the short rows.  The underarm will be bulkier and you may need to lengthen the sleeve to make up for the additional pattern repeat in the sleeve cap.  This also means adjusting the decreases.  I thought about doing this myself but thought I was proficient enough with my short rows to manage it — au contraire, Over Confident One!  BUT once the first sleeve was done, I figured I might as well continue on and the shoulders do fit me at the shoulder line without a drop, so it probably fits better with a cap for me.  In any case, I could not face re-knitting the sleeve and having to knit THREE sleeves for this thing.  That is what has kept me from finishing my tailored Mitered Cardigan (but let’s not dwell on the past!).

My Aran Wrap Cardigan is finally completely finished. I thought I had finished it several days ago, but decided the sleeves were a tiny bit too short. I hate feeling as if I need to tug my sleeves down all the time, so I sighed heavily and then added a couple of inches. It was the right thing to do.

It’s very hot and muggy in our nation’s capital today; it’s definitely not the right weather for throwing on my Aran Wrap Cardigan and wandering around town. I did try to take some photographs of myself wearing it, despite the heat, but none of them turned out. Trust me. (Not the fault of the sweater; it’s just hard to get decent photographs of yourself even with a tripod — especially after the “bubble ass incident.”) If I ever get a competent assistant in the house, I’ll post some that show how it fits. In the meantime, here are the requisite sweater-on-a-flat-surface shots (the color is very true in these):

And a closer look at how the large cable flows across the back and sleeves:

I’ve now turned back to one of my other one-armed wonder sweaters: Ode to Joy. I hope to have that finished within a few days.

I finally finished the large rectangle portion of the Aran Wrap — as Sally forges on to the finish line!  Oh well, there is nothing I can do but keep on pluggin’.

Here is my Wrap, draped ever so elegantly over the back of my couch:

Yes, it looks enormous!  But it isn’t — it fits perfectly!  The shoulders are the proper width apart.  The back seems short, though, so I may need to add a repeat (more knitting for moi 🙁 ) to the peplum and I already know I’ll be adding to the sleeves.  But I do not want this to look skimpy and too short.  Too short in this case will highlight one’s derriere and we know what that looks like 😉 .

It is a really brilliant design.  I hope it looks good when it is done!  I am still excited with this project and will knit both sleeves before tackling the peplum so they are not the last phase.

I am re-visiting a project from the not too distant past — I will post more once it starts to get somewhere.  I need something as a take-along and the Aran Wrap ain’t it!