2 Mermaids

I managed to get a photo of the last two Mermaids after they were gifted. I didn't remember to put the clasps on either one (I was waiting until it was tried on so each could decide where to put them) so will be doing it when I visit them. The one on the left is hiding the printing on her shirt.

Got My mermaid

DH gifted me this Mermaid Colorway 2 Can't wait to start...would like to have it for February Trip to Ireland but sooooooooo many other WIPs..

Ballerina Error

I'm still working on finishing the Ballerina spreadsheet and I was having trouble making my counts work out for the stripe section just before the 2nd sleeve when I figured out why. There's a misleading instruction in the pattern. On page 4, the Ballerina pattern instructions have you to work a stripe section after the 3rd gusset, and then follow instructions on page 2 from the triangles. That section tells you to knit to the last YO before the armhole = 68(71) stitches (depending on size). The numbers are correct, but you aren't knitting to a YO. Just knit the first 68(71) stitches and then place them on a holder. It's hard to visualize unless you have the spreadsheet listing all the YOs and stitch counts and you're mapping out mirrored row numbers. But trust me on this. :)

Hanne on sale!

Hi!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Kangaroo (http://www.kangaroo.uk.com/) is having 15% off until Dec. 31. Great time to buy yourself a Hanne sweater for Christmas!

I've started my Studio short sweater but haven't gotten far enough for a picture yet. Hopefully after Christmas I will have more time to work on it.

Linda

Mermaid #3

This is my 3rd Mermaid. I started it November 26, 2006 and finished December 12, 2006. With a couple of days off because I didn't have the yarn for the stripes in the body. It seems to go faster each time! I hope to have photos of all 3 Mermaids worn at the same time by the end of the weekend!

About those Spreadsheets...

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to let you all know that I'm still alive. I had a hard drive failure on my work laptop in early November, right before I was on travel for several weeks. So, keeping up with my knitting e-mail wasn't a top priority. However, things are mostly back to normal and I'm catching up. I have ~2000 knitting e-mails to sift through and I know I have lots of spreadsheet requests in them. So if you're waiting for something from me, you'll hear from me very soon.

And if you're just learning about the Mermaid and Ballerina spreadsheets, sit tight and let me catch up first.

thanks!

looking for pattern trade

Hi Everyone,
If you are done with your pattern and interested in trading for something different, I am particularly interested in mermaid or ballerina, or maybe one of the other beautiful patterns. I have several lovely patterns I could trade in exchange. Please contact me directly if you are interested at elweyu@hotmail.com Please put Hanne pattern in the subject line so that if my mailer decides it is spam, it will be easy for me to retrieve it.

Thanks, and you are all doing great!

Math for short rows

I've posted the general math for short row shaping on my blog. If you have any questions, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

For Mermaid, just turn the shaping 90 degrees, so that you're adding stitches for length and adding rows for width. I won't discuss adding stitches for length here. For Mermaid, there's also the additional complication of the striping pattern. Luckily, that's not hard to work with. Just split up the colour of your short rows to more-or-less hide within the stripes (one stripe ridge, one short row ridge -- put in more short row stripes per stripe if needed).

There's another option that makes the bust dart (or at least part of it) decorative. There is a conveniently placed two-ridge stripe from the top of the gusset (colour C). Take the style of shaping in the hourglass-shaped diagram from my math post, invert it, and embed it all into the blue stripe. Start off with short rows of a stich or three, make your short rows longer and longer until you reach the midpoint, then reverse the shaping to make the other side of the dart. This may not turn out looking as "jacket-like" as some might like, because it'll make a bit of a cone shape to make room for your breast.

Does this make sense to people? Because everyone will need to add different numbers of stitches for length and different numbers of short rows for width, everyone will make slightly different tweaks to the pattern, so I haven't worked out the numbers here. If people ask really nicely, I could do a worked example for my measurements or be bribed with socks or something to tweak the pattern for them.

Finished Mermaid

I've finally finished off my Mermaid in colourway 1, after the upcoming snow scared me into needing sweaters!

I used the directions as-written, except that I used a provisional cast-on (instead of picking up stitches from an icord) and then made the icord over all live stitches. This sweater certainly suggests curviness well, but doesn't accomodate it as well. If I knit this again, I'm going to eliminate a bunch of the stripes and make colour C gussets facing up as well as down. (To make bust darts, one would make strategically placed diamond-shaped darts. If anyone's curious how to do this, I can post the math.) For more pictures, see Woolly Mammoths.