Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Is it Hot in Here?


Yes, here it is, my long-intended post about the famous Cheetos sweater from Hell. This has been on the needles for over a year now - luckily the recipient is done growing, I think / hope. So this blog entry is for you, dear Jess. Read on, lucky readers, and learn the story of the shrug.

This is Jess daSilva, by the way - she just graduated from RISD, and was a phenom on the Providence Roller Derby circuit. When she comes back from Brazil next spring, she will go back to the team. Her game name is daSilva Bullet. Freakin beautiful, or WHAT???

I picked what looked like a simple pattern from the KnitPicks catalog, the Bolero shrug, to make for her. I figured - hey - I have been knitting for a WHOLE YEAR - of COURSE I can make the leap to a sweater. And she's small, so it would go quick - right? What I didn't remember is that I hadn't produced much more than partially finished hats and a few scarves. It sucks to work full time plus and try to learn a skill that, for me anyways, takes some concentration and patience. I am not spatially adept - can't just look at a pattern and see what the results will be. And learning new stitches? HA! At LEAST three demos from increasingly impatient expert knitting buddies.

But I digress. So I sent Jess an email with the KnitPicks Shine yarn URL, which they recommended to make the shrug with, and asked her to pick a color. She chose, of all things, the Apricot. What a surprise - this girl has gorgeous coloring that would go with vomit-color. But Apricot? What about that beautiful Cherry? But whatever she wants....! I'll tell you though, the color gives me hot flashes whenever I work with it. Apricot schmapricot - it's the color of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, or Cheetos.

The knitting went along very well - I learned new skills, like increases and decreases, that I hadn't used before. I could see it taking shape, and the yarn, color aside, is sooooo soft. Try Shine sport weight. It is 60% Pima Cotton, 40% Modal - I don't have a clue what that is. But the yarn is so easy to work with.

And then the leaf edgings, the final pieces. The right side came along, after about a dozen trips to the frog pond until I understood the pattern. But the left edging stumped me. No matter how many times I read the pattern, it seemed like what should be a 10 stitch row decreased to a 9 stitch row after the first row - definitely not the same as the right edge. Well, after sending emails to KnitPicks and then learning the very weird and uncomfortable purlwise yarnover as first stitch, voila. The edging is finally done.

So now I get to assemble. Did I say yet that the mattress stitch is boring and frustrating? Not liking it. And I may have to rip a whole side seam out and start over because the pieces aren't lining up. But this think is almost done - I can smell success.

Jess emailed me a week or so ago and hinted that she would be pleased to receive the finished shrug while she is still in Brazil. She added that the girls down there often wear shrugs like that with nothing underneath them. Yeah, right - like that will make me run to the post office! I've known the kid since she was 5! She'll get the sweater when she comes home in March!!!

(Project pictures are coming - bear with me!!)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi... Thanks for stopping by my little world. Love the booga bags you are doing, exspecially the burgandy, white and green one. Beautiful colors. Have a great weekend!!

yarnophiliac said...

Great bags -- and you are right -- she will def. make the cheeto sweater look gorgeous. Hope to see you at knitting soon! I miss you! ~H

Gina House said...

Okay, can she be any more beautiful??? I loved reading about your "Cheetos" bolero adventure...even though I pretty much lived through some of it...especially the ripping out and swearing...those were the best times! I KNOW you will finish it just the way it should be and can't wait to see it on Jesse!

Laurin said...

oh, geez. Jess, of course I forgot your birthday. You know I am lousy about birthdays - but hopefully I make up for that at Christmas!???

Happy birthday chickee - I hope your tush is still stinging from all the spankings! (did I say that?)