The Saga of the Asymmetrical Shrug - Possible Solutions

Well, I talked to the Bella Vita Gals last night about my Evening Star Shrug. I found out something interesting that I didn't know. The right sleeve of the was knit flat, then you seam it up to form the arm tube. With the left sleeve however you pick up stitches and knit in the round. Elizabeth told me last night that most peoples tension is different when they knit in the round than when they knit flat. That does explain why the right side seems more loose and airy. They suggestion was thrown out that since it is an Asymmetrical Shrug that I leave the sleeves the way they are an no one would know the difference. It IS supposed to be asymmetrical right?? But after talking to everyone last night, I think I will just take out the Bindoff (CAREFULLY) and add some more rows until the two match in length.

Although I really like the explanation given by my Secret Monkey Pal: "...My secret theory is that someone breaks into my house in the night, while I'm sleeping, and knits a few extra rows on whatever I'm knitting. Sometimes he takes a couple of rows out, just to mess with my head. I didn't realize he had a regular route, somehow I thought it was just me." I guess you can't call him a knitting fairy or elf, because they are supposed to help you finish stuff like knit your socks, block the shawl, cobble the shoes, fold the laundry, or even mud the drywall. But since this obviously didn't happen, I must have been visited by Stripe the Gremlin.

The Saga of the Asymetrical Shrug - Continued

Back in August, I was explaining about the Evening Star shrug that I am making. Well, I finished the knitting on Sunday when I was at work. I was very careful to make sure I had the same number of rows on each sleeve. But they are still not the same length!?!?!? The left one is MUCH shorter. What do I do? The shrug is made out of Acrylic, so I don't know if there is anything I can do. I guess maybe the first sleeve stretched while I was knitting. I don't know. It is looser too, so I must have started knitting tighter when I started knitting it again in August. I just don't know what to do. I think this is why I like knitting socks so much. I am terrible at sewing clothes too! Do you think if I wash it, it will spring back to where it should be? It's probably at least 4-5 inches too short. I thought about taking out the bindoff and adding a couple more inches, but what happens then if that side stretches. It could potentially end up at my knees. Is there anyway to shorten the first sleeve without ripping our the whole sweater? I cast on at the cuff of the right sleeve.

Any ideas will be much appreciated. I forgot to bring it with me today or I would be taking it to Bella Vita tonight to see what the other knit gals think. I will at least bring it up tonight.

3-day Weekend

Although this is typically a 3-day weekend off for most of the US, I have to work extra this weekend. I always work Sunday's as that is my part-time job. But Rachel needed Saturday off and since she worked my Sunday on Memorial Day weekend, I thought it only fair to work for her Saturday this weekend. At least I get Monday off. Going to a cook-out at my Mom's.

The upside to working both days, is that I should get lots of time to knit. Although with the combination of it being the first Notre Dame game of the year with all the tailgating that will be going on and a Holiday weekend, there is the potential for a lot of people showing up for Xrays. We'll see.

On the Knitting front, I ripped out the turned heel on my RPM socks and have finished the heel flap and the gusset. It fits much better with the heel flap. I also picked up the stitches on the Evening Star Shrug for the left sleeve and have knitted 22 rows. Only 58 more to go.

Hope Everyone has a great weekend!!

PS: I "borrowed" my dad's digital camera. I will be trying it out this weekend and should have some more pictures to post next week.

The Saga of the Asymmetrical Shrug - Breakthrough!!

In early May, I started a shrug pattern from the magazine Simply Knitting out of the UK. It was in issue #26 and is called Evening Star by Jennifer Hilton. I loved the look of it and decided to have it finished by the time I went to my family reunion in May. I picked out some aqua extra soft acrylic out of my stash and set down to cast on.
The pattern had a design element that I had never run into before, but I thought how hard could it be. The pattern was done in stockinette stitch and on the knit row you did a YO2. No big deal. But on the purl row, you had to purl into the back loop of the 2^nd YO. Try as I might, I could not figure this one out. After much tinking, I did a Google search and found step-by-step instructions with photos on the blog of Lucia, The Knitting Fiend. So once I had that down, the knitting went fairly fast. The Evening Star is knitted starting at the right cuff, then you cast on extra stitches for the back and right front. Once you are done with the right front, you cast off and only work the back stitches. I did fine through all of this. The first problem I ran into was when I got to the Left Arm placement. Most shrugs and/or sweaters are a mirror image, so that what you do to one side you repeat on the other; and this patterns' schematic is drawn that way. However, because this shrug is asymmetrical, it doesn’t quite work that way. The armhole placement is knitted with waste yarn and later picked up and knitted in the round. Once I had the girls from the Frog Pond talk me through it, it went OK. Then I ran into another problem that I finally figured out was an error with the pattern. On shaping the left side, the pattern switched from Knit row, Purl row to Knit row, Purl row, Purl row, Knit row, Repeat. At first, I thought I was just reading it wrong; you know like operator error. These 4 rows were the decrease rows and I was really confused by the Purl decrease row. I tried fixing it on my own, but it didn’t work and I had to tink back. Then I went to Simply Knitting’s website and found a comment posted in April regarding possible errors to the Evening Star pattern. SK was sending the pattern back to the designer to be reviewed. So I packed away the shrug and added my name to their comments in the hopes of getting an email notice when the corrections came out. Well, I have been checking periodically over the last months and SK had still not made any changes/additions to their notice.

You know when you don’t finish something it kind of throws you off your stride. Well, since I didn’t get to finish the shrug and didn’t know if I would ever get an answer to how to finish it, I just wasn’t interested in starting any new big projects or at least finishing any new projects. The few shawls and bags that I have started since, have ended up being set aside partially finished in favor of something else. So instead of 1 UFO, I now have 5. The only thing I have actually finished was a pair of Tidal Wave Socks by Deby Lake. I also started Knitty’s RPM socks, but that shrug has been haunting me. Now that we have been having some cooler days (occasionally) here in Michiana, I wanted to finish my shrug. So I took it with me on Wednesday when I met some of the Frog Pond girls at Indulgence Café (YUM!). I talked it over with Elizabeth and we thought of a plan of attack. The first thing I did though was add a lifeline just incase; frogging is much easier than tinking. Well, after working my way slowly through the purl decrease row and switching rows 3 and 4 of the 4 decrease rows, I finally figured it out! I worked on it last night and am almost finished with the left front.

Now I may have run into another problem. The shrug is supposed to be a little snug, but I don’t like snug things as they tend to emphasize area’s that I would rather not emphasize, if ya know what I mean. So I made a size up, and now think it will be too big. And since I knit it in Acrylic (because that is what I had on hand) I know it won’t shrink. So I think I will place the remaining left side stitches on a holder, seam up the right side and add the left sleeve. Then, after trying it on, I can decide whether I want to keep the left-side shorter and therefore have it snug in a bit or finish it off like the pattern says.

Here is a couple pictures of my progress. In the first you can sort of see how the shrug will end up being asymmetrical. The pink stitches it the up right is where the left sleeve will be added and the other pink stitches lower down is my lifeline. The second picture show the how the decreasing looks on the left front side.






























Well, that is all for now. I probably won't get much time before I go to work on Sunday to work on the left sleeve. Tomorrow I am going for a "Girls Goof Off" day with my friend McKelle. She has 2 children (5 & 2) and needs an adult conversation with someone other than my husband day. She wants to shop for some fabric and then we are planning on seeing the new Bourne Ultimatum movie. So see ya later.