Black Tang

At last. I have finished the black Tang Sweater.

The rib at the bottom took two evenings to do. Finally finished it at 0010 hrs this morning, and wove the ends in this evening whilst waiting for dinner to cook. As you do. Well, I do anyway.

The pattern is from Wendy Bernard's Custom knits and is a top down set in sleeve pattern. It was a sweater of firsts; first provisional cast on, first picked up set in sleeve knit top down, first wrap and turn on the short rows on the sleeve caps and first time using Jeny's Super Stretchy Bind Off. This amazing method is detailed in Knitty Fall 2009 and produces, as the title suggests, a bind off of such utter stretchiness that the rib will stretch all the way, unlike most other bind offs. For a woman who normally has to redo the bind off multiple times so she can get the sweater over her head, this is a totally amazing discovery. I did intially bind it off too loosely and had to unpick the bind off and redo it, but it was worth it. And next time I will know I don't need to bind off loose with this method.

One important note; I did struggle with the collar. It has to turn over so if you start out knitting 3x1 rib the right way around, and continue that way, by the time you get to the part where you fold it over, the wrong side of the rib will show. Having unpicked it twice, I checked with my kntting guru who said it was OK to do what I had planned, which was to knit the first three inches in 3x1 rib, then change so that I had purls over knits (P3, K1) which very neatly produces a turtleneck which will fold over obediently and look correct on the outside.

The yarn was a gift from said knitting guru who hates knitting with black yarn so much that she donated it to me. I am the queen of black. I wasn't going to turn it down. Its Jaeger Matchmaker Merino Aran and its really, really soft and scrumptious. Softer than the arans I've worked with thus far, it drapes nicely so it looks like an indoor sweater rather than a thick and bulky outdoor sweater. The waist shaping also helps to give the sweater its fitted look.

Overall, I am very pleased with the outcome. However, it is very evident that it is going to be the kind of sweater that will be a complete magnet for pet hair. Some sweaters I own don't seem to have a single hair attached to them (usually the sweaters I don't love all that much), this is not going to be one of those sweaters. The dog need only walk by on the other side of the room from the sweater and hair magically adheres to the yarn. Which I can see is going to be quite annoying.

Next on the knitting list;

a tension square in the Araucania hand dyed bulky in preparation for casting on a sweater.

More work on the rainbow shawl if there is time.

Next on the sewing list:

Two jackets

Two pairs of trousers

One Skirt

Multiple BWOF turtlenecks.