Why learn something once when you can do it three or four times?

So over the weekend I finished the back of my new friend Josephine.  Plus I ripped out the sleeve and re-knit it.

See, I knit it as written on 7mm needles.  It was too short and and the super bulky two by two ribbing was a bit unpliable.  The short was my fault - a little arithmetic ought to have showed me that I needed a few more inches.  But do I listen to the inside of my head?  I do not.

We've been having an ongoing discussion in my knitting class about this - the teacher is European and most of the women in the group learned to knit from her.  It has kind of always fascinated me that they tend to stick to translated Filati and Rebecca Patterns and special order Lana Grossa yarns (getting harder to find) rather than exploring the full range of British and North American yarns and patterns that are available here.  I am usually doing something quite different than the rest of the group and I had a very hard time getting my head around the Knit Goddess's gauge when I first joined them.  She often knits cables in a loose way that seemed so peculiar to me, but her sweaters looked great.  I filed this away in my head but didn't do much with the information

When I fell in love with the Josephine pattern I tried to find a local substitute with a similar cashmere content, because, hello, giant cozy cashmere sweater = GOOD.  Everything I tried was too heavy, too dense and I abandoned the project.  Recently it crossed my mind again - Ravelry I expect - and I googled the pattern yarn.  Adriafil has begun doing international sales through their website and so I ordered a box load in burst of Devil-may-care insouciance (I've been in a tricky mood for a month or so and a big box of yarn is my favorite cure for that).

I love the yarn, and noticed that in construction it reminded my of my friends' favorite Lana Grossa yarns.  Intriguing.

Using the Claudia method I knit a sleeve/swatch.  And as I said, I thought it was a little too stiff to be flattering.  Since this is a long cardigan I want to make sure that it has some suppleness to it, and is generous rather than snug on my curvy bits.  I got pattern gauge for the cables on the designated 7.5 mm needle, but looking at at that sleeve worried me and on impulse I went up to 8mm for the back.  The result is perfect.  The spin of the yarn and the nylon content give it a light weight and a lot of bounce so it holds is shape beautifully, and the looser gauge makes it fluid and wearable.

I'm used to the idea of knitting at a tight gauge and blocking to size, that you can give your fabric drape with this kind of finishing, but it isn't really as simple as that.   This yarn is wrecked by hard blocking - ask me how I know.  This yarn - and many others from brands like Lana Gosssa and Phildar - tend to be more engineered.  Not in the sense that novelty yarn is engineered, but designed and spun to be fashion forward garments, wearable and faster to knit.  They are further away from the sheep, if that makes sense.  It isn't strictly a European vs. British line of decent, though I think you can draw some broad categories that way.

I think I've had a lesson on listening to my materials rather than my preconceived ideas.   

Because that sleeve?  Was too small.  Following what I 'know' to be 'correct,' I wet it and blocked it to make it more fluid, causing it to collapse, going a bit sad and flat.  I knew it needed to be redone, but I was too lazy to wash the stitch curls out of it, just reknit from one end of the sleeve on one size large needles.  If I was using Beaverslide worsted this would be dandy, any quirks of stitch fine tunable with a good block.  But I am not using Beaverslide worsted, or handspun, or anything made in a more traditional fashion, am I?

It looked like ass.  So I....got it wet and laid it flat to help those stitches relax. 

It worked about as well as you might expect. 

All I could talk about last night was how crap it was, as I knit along on the second sleeve - on the bigger needles, in un-meddled with yarn, all springy and beautiful.  Finally I faced the fact that I would be knitting four sleeves for this sweater and pulled it out.  For the second time.
The yarn has been soaked AGAIN and is hanging in the bathroom in skeins, hopefully recovering some of its get up and go.  Maybe I have enough yarn that this can be used for the belt or something.  I'd feel pretty stupid if I had to order four more skeins from Italy because of my own idiocy.

On the upside I have really worked the kinks out of increasing in 2X2 rib.

I think it's a good lesson though - not to let my own assumptions get in the way and remember that all yarns are not the same.  Something like Bingo or Charme or Aurora 8 may benefit a great deal from NOT being blocked, in fact blocking may cause it to lose elasticity and even shorten its life.  A more relaxed gauge might make it bounce and bloom instead of flop and sag.  Just as Scottish Tweed or Jameisons or Beaverslide may thrive on wicked tight tension and firm discipline. 

Pictures when I have recovered from last night's destruction.

Comments

[Amber]

I vote that it's the synthetic content. And I also always vote for doing things three or four times. I recently knit 5 (very simple) socks to get a pair.

[merete]

i think it is a southern europe yarn sort of thing. and hence i rarely knit with those. but there is a lack of nice tweedy lovely wooly things here with a scent of montana mountain fires to them like beaverslide here (in denmark). i was so disappointed browsing my lys' here in copenhagen today. what a poor poor variety. no wonder that i get my wool fix from other sources. if i was your european knitting teacher/goddess (which i would be- european that is) i would encourage local produce.

[Frarochvia]

Wow! Definitely food for thought... but what about washing?

[Chris]

Y'know, I often learn such interesting things from reading your blog - things that get me thinking in ways I wouldn't otherwise be thinking. That's a very good thing. :)

[Laurie]

You know about the bar increase after the knit and before the poorl stitch, right? Hides the bar? No puckering as with the lifted increase?

[Gwen]

Fascinating. We're learning so much from your learning through this sweater.

I hope the skeins recover.

[claudia]

I completely know what you mean. Phildar yarns, for example, are for a completely different garment than say, Rowan.

[Jessica]

Definitely sounds like an interesting experience. What do you suppose they do to the yarn in manufacture to make it behave so oddly?

[Dr. Steph]

So if it can't be blocked, can it be washed? That being said, i love that you're *thinking* so much about your yarn. I don't do that enough and have some crap knits because of it.

[Stephanie]

Where, *exactly* are we drawing the line between washing and blocking?

[anne]

it's so true; EVERY yarn and every sweater seems to have individual rules . . .
i don't mind so much, but i have figured one thing out. i always start with the sleeves because any quirks like the ones you are talking about are better worked out there, where it's small, and where, even if you end up slightly off from the fabric you REALLY wanted, the arm will support it when it's on. i like to get it perfect before starting the back and front pieces, which have only the shoulders to hang from.
(also there's a lot to be said for having the sleeves done and ready to be sewed in at the end . . . i hate sleeve island . ..)