It's been a busy fortnight: work is picking up as we approach the date for incorporating the consortium of 28 charities I work with in London. Lots of meetings and lots of documenting for me. I'm relentlessly writing reports and talking to lawyers and putting forward proposals and requesting decisions.
And then, the growing season is starting and I have tiny potato plants that require nurturing. There's another few weeks before the danger of frost has passed, so they're living in my front porch, and I take them out to the garden when it's warm enough, and bring them in again as the light fades and the temperature drops.
All this extra keyboard work and garden preparation is hard on my hands, so even when I am able to find some time, and I'm not shattered, my hands are not always up to manipulating needles and yarn, even on a simple project for nine kinds of tiredness. I've been thinking I might book in for a hand massage :)
So things have been a bit slow this past fortnight on the knitting front. But I had a quieter weekend and enjoyed myself unravelling and rewinding a project that wasn't going to plan (that took nearly as long as knitting it); and I got to grips with shaping the shoulders in the Dennis the Menace stripey jersey.
I'd got this far in my last post. It doesn't show, but there is a mistake in the stripes: the top blue stripe on the right-hand front is four rows too narrow. I'd gone quite a lot further before I realised and had to backtrack a bit.
I had been thinking quite a lot about shaping the shoulders and neckline. My shoulders are quite narrow and I wanted quite a sharp slope on the shoulders, and a relaxed, not too high, fit at the neckline. This is quite a soft, drapey fabric and garment without much structure, and I thought it might benefit from a fairly firm, structured shoulder seam.
I've made things easy for myself, constructionwise: each stripe is twenty rows wide and I kept the shaping within one stripe:
- For the front neckline, I cast off sixteen stitches in row two or three (depending which side I was doing) and then decreased one stitch in each knit row.
- For the back neckline, I decreased one stitch at either side of the neckline on a knit row from row eleven. There are 26 stitches on the stitchholder at the centre back of the neckline.
- For the shoulders, I started the shaping at row eleven using short rows and wrap and turn, and continued with leaving another five stitches in each knit row. This meant the neck edge was about 2 cms higher than the shoulder edge - about right for me.
When I checked the measurements with my template garment, they are spot on! I'm really pleased about this because it means I am getting to grips with tension and understanding my knitting style. I've made the body length about 5cms longer, still quite cropped. I think this will look well with jeans or cropped trousers (but not cigarette pants - it's too casual) or over a dress or skirt.
I toyed with all kinds of ways of avoiding sewing up the shoulder seam, but I had an idea about picking up stitches from each back and front and knitting them together and then binding off as I went along. It worked perfectly, and makes a nice firm seam that adds strength and structure at the shoulder. It's very fast, too, and no sewing up!
There are lots of videos on youtube that show you how to do the 3-needle bind off. This was the first one I found, and demonstrates the bind off for English and Continental methods of knitting.
Three needle shoulder seam bind off - right side. I like the way the stitches match up, I always find that so difficult with mattress stitch.
Three needle shoulder seam bind off - wrong side. A nice neat row marching across the shoulder, and comparatively flat and inconspicuous.
So the crucial moment: when I'd completed the shoulder seams, I tried on the jersey. I was terrified it would be too big, but it fitted me perfectly, the shoulders were the right length as well as the right angle. I loved the soft drape, the neckline and length were just right. The armholes look disconcertingly large to me, although they match the measurements in the template garment.
I have about four and a half balls of yarn left to complete the top. I'm going to complete the button band and neckline first, and then use whatever is left for the sleeves. I was thinking about a collar for the neckline, but given I have so little yarn left, I'm going for a plain ribbed one instead.
#needleworkmonday with 
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