Trial and Error

Sometimes you just have to keep trying until something works.  That's been especially true with the edging for the poncho.  I don't think I've ever had such a time with a design.

I started the edging with an I-cord that was supposed to be the outside edging but as I worked it, I realized that it was pulling in on that side so that would need to be the side attached to the body.  Fine, no problem.  That would give a nice flow from the body to the edging.

I did a light block on the body and as I worked the edging, I would lay the edging around to see how close I was to getting it long enough.  When I got close to what I thought was the finish, I started attaching the edging to the body so I could knit to the very end and have a nice tight finish.  But when I  got to the end of the edging, it looked like it was way short.  What?!

I thought the edging I had should have fit almost all the way around but I kept knitting, adding another 8 inches or so until it went all the way around.  Great, right?  Well, great until I tried it on and found that the edging was all wavy.  Arghhhhh!!!!!

I then had to take the edging completely off (about 110 inches of edging, by the way) and re-attach with better spacing.  Once I did that, I then had to rip out about 6 inches of the edging that I'd knit before, taking into account that I needed to make the braid from the beginning flow into the braid at the end.

Done.

Good.  Now I needed to figure out what to do with the outside edge to finish it off.  It was really rough so I decided to crochet around the edge to give it a little form but it needed something else.  I only had part of one skein of yarn left so I had to be a little careful.  As an old crocheter, if all else fails, use a shell stitch.  So that's what I did and it worked perfectly.  Here's the final product that is worth all the hassle of making sure it was right in the end.

 

Of course, it ain't over till the blocking's done.  Sometimes it makes all the difference.

It ended up being the perfect length and the perfect circumference.  Some of that was guess work and some of that was experience and some of that was pure old trial and error.

Quick update

I did a quick measure of the circumference of my poncho and I'm going to need, roughly, 110 inches (9 ft 2 in) of edging. 

I've done 16 inches. I have 3 full skeins and still probably a third of the one I'm working on. I actually feel much better now about having enough to finish. 

Wait. Forget I said that. 

By the way, for an easy way to measure things like this, I took a ball of linen yarn (so it won't be stretchy) and traced around the outside of my poncho. At the end I cut it off and then I measured the string with my metal tape measure (again so I don't have any stretch). 

Now I have the yarn to keep with my edging to measure against. I haven't fully blocked the poncho but at least this will get me close and I'll finish the edging once it's been mostly attached so that it lays right. 

The Edging (dum, dum, duuuuummmm)

I've made some progress on the braided cable poncho.

Front:

With its giant 15-stitch braid.

And the Back:

With its braided motif. The cable around the neckline is knitted but not yet stitches down, in case it doesn't look right to you.  It's not right yet but it will be.

Looks pretty far along, right?

It's actually not so far as you'd think because there is still The Edging. 

Anyone who has knitted an edging around a shawl or doily or any other article will understand the physical and psychological blow The Edging inflicts. 

You've got this whole garment which has many, many stitches and has used much yarn. In my example here, I've used 8 1/2 balls of yarn. That's over 1,000 yards of yarn. If you were a newby, you'd be thinking, "I've got this.  This is easy. Almost done."

But I am not a newby and I know that, even though my edging is narrow, the 3 1/2 balls I have left to make this edging may very well not be enough to go around the entire circumference of the poncho. 

It's just a few innocent stitches of background, a narrow i-cord to make a nice, finished edge and a simple little 6-stitch braided cable. What could be easier?

So the question to be answered is, "Will 427 yards of yarn be enough."  At this stage, it's anybody's guess. Stay tuned as the adventure continues. 

Figuring stuff out

I've got to the back of my braided cable poncho and started the Celtic knit motif.

I found a photo when I was searching for a pattern and this is my attempt to recreate it.

I'm about halfway through the pattern and I think it's going to work out. Sometimes these things are a little trial and error but so far so good. I don't want to but I can rip out with the best. Lots of practice, me. 😉

I was going to have the back straight across but I've decided to make the point to match the front. The decision is purely practical - I don't know if I'll have enough yarn otherwise. I still need to make the border and certainly don't want to run out of yarn on that section. Being last year's purchase, I'm pretty sure I'd never find another skein in this batch. 

I'm off to finish another row or two…

Fini

I love it when projects go like this one did. 

 

Way back last year, early last year, I bought some fiber.  It was a special deal from Ashland Bay that had a variety of unusual wool fibers, including "Portuguese" wool and Masham (a breed of sheep).  I had some dark chocolate Shetland (another breed of sheep) in my stash already so that gave me a natural white (Portuguese), medium grayish brown (Masham), and dark brown (Shetland).  Several years ago I'd used the Ashland Bay Apple Green to spin some yarn for mittens and a scarf and I loved the color.  I thought that would be a great pop of color to go with the natural colors so I got some of that as well.  Late last year on my trip to Maine, I got to go to Halcyon Yarns (one of my absolute favorite places in the universe) and while I was there I found a Merino (yet another sheep breed) mix of 3 shades of natural colors that you spin together and get a medium brown with good depth to it.

 I started spinning a nice fluffy 2-ply yarn that after washing ended up much thicker than I expected.  But I had a picture in my mind of what a Fair Isle sweater would look like using these yarns.  Just a picture.  But I realized that the yarn was really too chunky for a sweater and I spent much of my drive to my Mom's mulling over what to do.  Lo and behold, I came across a knitting book in an antique mall that showed a cabled poncho using thick yarn and it hit me.  That would be a perfect use for my lovely yarn.

 I chose my needles and number of stitches to cast on (based on the cabled poncho pattern) and started out.  Actually first of all, knit a swatch using all the colors and decided that was how I wanted to start off.  And then I carried on.  I decided that, because of the chunky yarn, I should use smaller motif designs.  With my handy pattern dictionary at my side, I looked through, found a few that I liked, decided the order of them and I knit.  Once I got to the next section and it seemed like it was time for another one, I chose and knit another one and so on.

Once I got to the shoulders, I wasn't really sure how to do the decreases so I just winged it and it came out perfectly.  So how does one finish it off?  With a wide fold-over pivot edged collar.  The collar done like that made room for the button bands and finished it off just right (as did the heavy shell vintage buttons that I already had on hand - just right).