More Stripe Mania -- Wharf from Rowan Mag 55

The Spring/Summer 2014 Rowan Magazine 55 really excelled at one thing: stripes.  I mean, there's a gazillion striped things in there: 24 out of 38 designs!  I already made one of them and had a great time doing it: my Dollaramy Sally.

My next choice was Wharf by Gemma Atkinson.

I especially loved the little garter stitch shoulders that gave the piece a little bit of zing -- I have a thing for highlighted shoulders.

See my post about my Buckland sweater, here.

Stripes are really good for stashbusting as you can get away with using less yarn.  But it also can lead to stashaugmenting (new word) because you really want the very perfectest colors to stripe together.  Oops, that will be MY story.

The original uses Rowan Wool Cotton 4-ply, but I wanted something a tad warmer.  I also wanted a ginormous palette to choose from, so in came Madelinetosh Merino Light.  I had far too many leftovers of the color Manor from this ski sweater...

See my Julia Sweater on Ravelry, here.

...and so came up with this color scheme:

Swatching it revealed that the Dr. Zhivago's Sky gray was very close to the Manor... I hemmed and hawed and in the end decided that a subtle stripe would be cool.  HINT: to see how a swatch looks on, tie it on your arm with rubber bands!

So if we add it all up: STASHBUST WIN: Only 6 grams left of the main color, yeah!  STASHBUST FAIL: I had to buy 3 extra skeins to get the color scheme I wanted, and now I have awkward amounts left of each.  Stashbusting is like running on a hamster wheel, I swear.

Yes, this hamster would make i-cord!

I changed the stripe pattern around a little, instead of a 1-2-3 pattern, I went for a 1-2-1-3 pattern.  Of course, this brought me to Challenge #1.  When I got to the armhole, the color I was on was pink -- but that was the color that I was supposed to use directly for the shoulder accent!  Argh.  I decided to lengthen and knit the next color stripe pattern.  The problem with this was that it lowered the location of the waist.  Hmm.

And so came Challenge #2...

UGH!!  I don't really know what happened here, but I am definitely leaning toward blaming the yarn for the most part (and maybe my lengthening too).  It's a single-ply superwash and has already stretched for me in the past.  Somehow the hip was ok, but the waist and bust were too large and were making a CHEST SACK when worn.

Recently I described how I like to just sew my seams and chop off the excess.  That time I made a slip-stitch crochet line (or steek) right next to the seam using the original yarn.  I found that was too bulky, so this time I used a laceweight yarn with some synthetics for a thin but strong boundary.

The fit is really quite nice, now.

 I decided to leave the garter hem open on the sides, but am not sure if I will keep them that way, as it sort of rides up the back.

One of my favorite design elements of the sweater is the reverse stockinette rolling collar.  I need to use this more often!  Just use a smaller needle and it looks so darn neat.

Remember the no-man's land Mars landscape from my last photo shoot?  Well, Spring has definitely finally arrived.  We ran into a hipster convenient store (a "dépanneur" in Montréal) that sells nice sandwiches and expensive pharmacy colas called Le Pickup.  It was a lovely lunch and I highly recommend Dandelion Burdock soda, should you find it!

We spent most of our time talking about Singapore, as my husband will be flying there for an interview in June.  How different of a life would that be?!  I tell you one thing, I would have made this pullover in cotton instead of merino wool!  But then, another interview is in Bar Harbor, Maine... which is about the most opposite place from Singapore possible (geographically as well) and which requires Much Merino.  Very interesting times ahead.

See my Wharf in Tosh on Ravelry

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