the sweater: Ribby Cardi by Bonne Marie Burns
the yarn: Cotton-Ease in charcoal

After my long post on exactly how I managed to mess up the ribbing on the front pieces, both MadCarlotta and Amanda pointed out that I could fix the ribbing by ripping back and dropping some stitches then picking them up on the other side.

Luckily, I messed up in such a way that if I want to fix the extra wide rib along the center front I’d only have to rip out to the green dotted line, drop one column and pull it back up. The whole piece would be as the pattern called for it to be. That doesn’t seem too bad, even knowing I’d be doing it twice. While I’d made peace with wearing my pattern reading failures right there on my chest, my perfectionist tendencies are making my fingers itch to fix it.

Notes on the sleeves:

– I am to the decrease part of my first sleeve so I basted the seams together and tried it on:

Needs one more inch, for a total of 22 inches. (I’ll mostly be wearing this sweater while sitting down so I want extra long sleeves.)

– I am doing a m1 left slant on the right edge of the sleeve and a m1 right slant on the left side of the sleeve for the k ribs, and bar increases for the p ribs. These all blend in the best. Of course, it took me most of my first sleeve to figure this out so only my second sleeve will look really nice when viewed from the back.

– I reached the number of stitches across called for in the pattern after eight increase sections instead of the nine in the pattern. Also, next time start with a purl rib for the first set of increases, you’ll end with one and it’ll look tidy.

– Emily suggested making the sleeves out of 3×1 rib instead of 2×2 rib. Considering that I cannot block the Cotton-ease I might think of this for the next version I make. However, considering that the Cotton-ease is cotton and acrylic I’m afraid the sleeves would turn out too big around and droopy. Maybe do only some of the ribbing in 3×1 a la the back of the sweater? Would that look or feel strange?

– I’m spending a disturbing amount of time deciding which color of Cotton-ease to use next. Is the blue too dusty for me? Green would look terrible on me right? But the taupe is too warm, and the light gray would likely look like sweatshirt gray. And I don’t even know if I like the feel of Cotton-ease yet.

– I get a strange sort of pleasure pinning my knitting to my cutting table. I feel a bit like a mad scientist spreading out a specimen.

– I’ve only got one sleeve left and I’m pretty eager to get it done so that I can wear the sweater and work out any adjustments. My September is full of road trips and I’d like to take the next Ribby Cardi along with me in the car.

– I’m wondering if I can sew in the zipper without stitching in bands along the center front, I just don’t think they’d look very good in my yarn. I’m sure there is a very good reason for adding zipper bands, and I’m sure I’m going to find out what that reason is the hard way.

– some links:

• Zippers 101 at A Cunning Plan
• Clipping and stopping a zipper in the ribby cardi at Kimmish Knitting.
• Grumperina on how to get the zipper just the right length and seaming for her Brilliant Retro cardigan (also see these notes, and consider making the Brilliant Retro cardigan).
• Great notes on a finished Ribby Cardi at Streets and YOs. Note: She used attached i-cord instead of garter stitch bands for the front zipper bands and extended it up to the collar.
• Two 2×2 rib bind off methods from a peek inside a book at Google BookSearch.

– Some links from the Ribby Cardi Knitalong site:

• Mock collar knit twice as long and folded over to cover the end of the zipper, by Jennifer
• Martha’s mostly seamless construction and result.
• Really great photos of a finished one with a mock collar, made by Felicia.
• Two shots of the body being knit in one piece – kim and danserz (also see the sleeve on dpns).

– And because I have not done it yet, the obligatory picture of all the pieces of the sweater I have done so far:

Previous sweater entries: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh.