Caramel Swirl

I don't think I've ever posted any of the "blurry headless pictures in the bathroom mirror" on this here blog. Well, not anymore. I'm just about done with my Caramel Swirl. I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with the bind off for the neckling. I'm considering:

An I-cord bind off - I have I-cord going up the center fronts and I think that would carry along nicely with what I've already got going on.

A sideways knitted on garter stitch edging...for a fold over collar. Maybe with some lace. The sweater is very plain. I have some Garter stitch going up the center fronts (before the I-cord edging). I really love the way that sideways knitted on edgings look and finish off a piece. I really don't understand why they are not in more use. Probably because it's such a pain to describe how they're done if you're writing up the pattern! Very simple though - you just cast on however many stitches that you want your edging to be and knit back and forth, eating up a live stitch every other row. Does that make sense? Probably not - but it works beautifully, and you don't have to worry about your bind off being too tight.

I still have to weave in the underarms - you can see the Denise needle that I'm using to hold some of the stitches hanging down out of the sweater on my lower right in the picture at the beginning of this post. That's a standard stitch holder on the underarm in this pic. Hey, it works, and I'm not done yet. And of course weave in the ends - I also have some funkiness where I increased in a couple of places that I think I'll just have to go back and sew in - hopefully with some of the ends that I have left over.

All in all - I decided that this was something that was probably just going to get ripped out. I was not happy with how the I-cord edgings at the front were pulling the middle of the sweater up - and I'm not happy with some of my increase techniques. But looking at these pictures I think I'm going to go ahead and finish off the collar, and block the bejeezus outta it, and then decide. I wasn't sure if my waist shaping would work - I just decreased for a bit, and then increased for a bit longer (My bust is bigger than my hips) and went from there. Sometimes that's a total disaster - sometimes it actually works. I think I managed to make it work on this sweater.

This is knit with my handspun yarn - a 4 ply that I made a while ago. A ply each of tussah silk, camel down, fawn alpaca and an angora/wool blend, that melds together very nicely if I do say so. And it's soft! And warm! And of course with such precious handspun I want a finished item that will actually get worn, and that I'm proud to show off as my own. The jury is still out on this one, but I have a tendency to be overcritical of my own work, and also after spending weeks working on something, I start to question my thinking... It's too plain - the increases are funky - this i-cord at the edgings is pulling up way too much. My buttonholes are a bit wonky - what the heck was I thinking.

And then I take a picture and see that the shaping is actually very flattering on me, it's a good length - I'm very happy with the sleeves, and at the end of the day it's a lot of work to tear out. Stay tuned! It should be finished soon. Then I'll make my final decision.