A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss....

A few years ago at a Spinrite (Patons/Bernat) tent sale, I picked up a large cone of Bernat Masala in beautiful shades of green. I probably paid $20 for it and it weighs 1126gr (includes the cone), which is equal to 11 balls, or 1705 yards (the sweater below used 357grams, or 3.6 balls). Even if I was going to handknit it, working from a cone is great--reduces the number of ends to weave in! I knew at the time I could knit it on my KnitSmart, or maybe even my LK150. I didn't know if it would be a sweater, or an afghan.
After the new year, with all those "Potato Chip Scarves" I decided to give it a try on the LK150 as a scarf. It turned into a very long swatch. It felt a little big for the LK150. It also felt terrible. I hand washed the end of the swatch, and that seemed to improve it. However, it got set aside for other things.

Then, I got the Singer 155! Although there were many ideas running through my head on how to work this yarn (sideways, yoke on a different direction, plain...), I opted to go simple. I measured my favourite fleece sweater and compared it to the largest size of the lady's sweaters for the knit radar patterns. It was almost identical, though the fleece was longer. I also liked the curved bottom on the fleece sweater. I thought I had it all worked out, but the finished sweater turned out a bit shorter than I expected. Perhaps washing in the machine is also partly to blame, even though it's totally acrylic/polyester. When I went to measure the swatch, I couldn't find the gauge ruler with all the knit radar stuff. However, I could use my standard gauge ruler and figure it out. I had some issues with the setting on the Knit Radar. Even though the instruction book is quite good, it was missing an important detail. The row gauge of this sweater was 18.5rows/4" but the knit radar gauge scale starts at 30rows. If you have less than 30 rows, you set it for double the row gauge. But there are two trippers on the carriage....I won't get into it, LOL.I wanted a split neck, but not a V neck. I thought the neck would fold outwards....duh, it's stockinette stitch, it rolls inwards (although I thought about sewing it with purl side out, but I didn't need more texture). For the neck, I split it in two, and dec. one stitch on each side. I didn't need to dec. that stitch. It's also perhaps a tad low...I like to show some skin, but I do have my limits, LOL. Because it's rolling in, I think what I'll do is single crochet around the neckline, and make some small button loops near the bottom of the split, and sew about 3 buttons to close it up a smidgen. I'll also single crochet around the bottom, which will straighten it out and give me another centimeter or two.I decided to do two row stripes for the body. I wound off a large ball/cone, and nicely, for the back (first piece), the ball lasted for the whole back. I did have to cut the large cone and wind a second ball halfway up the front. Then there were ends where it split for the neck...and then on the sleeves, I didn't bother with the stripes, and used up the large ball and the swatch, but to keep the colours in large blocks in the proper colour progression, I did have to wind a few more small balls... Something feels a little funny with the shoulders. Maybe they're a smidge wide. When I sewed in the sleeve head, it did seem a little too short. Somehow the sleeves turned out a little too short, but I don't mind, I'm usually pushing up sleeves anyway! I also think sweater (esp. the back) is a little wide at the waist (I think I have a sway back), but the knit radar contour had straight sides and I didn't want to mess with it too much. I did add a couple inches across the front and didn't do any bust short rows ( because of the stripes). I think for the next one I'll nip it in at the waist a little.

I'm not totally sure how I feel about the sweater. Rob gave it his approval though. The yarn does feel better after being washed (SO important with cone yarns...the yarn has a good texture, but was very flat from being wound tightly on the cone), but it is still totally acrylic and the static is huge! LOL. And something just feels a little off....