Klosekraft

We have sleevage

I figured out the rate of decrease for the sleeves so they maintain a lot of volume on top and fit narrowly through the forearms. I'm very pleased—it looks exactly like I pictured it. I really had to lighten the hell out of the photo to show any detail.

I haven't decided whether I want 3/4 or full-length sleeves. I'm leaning toward full-length, but I'll keep trying it on.

I'm not happy about the lower edge. I knit a hem facing and haven't tacked it down yet, but I can already tell it's going to be too bulky. I think I'm going to rip back, bind off normally and crochet around the edges later. That'll answer my buttonhole question too; I can just skip spaces for buttonholes.

Black jacket and happy thrifting

Last night, I worked on the body of my black "pleated" cardigan while watching some of the second season of Veronica Mars. I ended up buying the dvds because my local Video Store of Extreme Pretension doesn't carry it (and the clerk was super-snotty when I asked about it, though I see on the website that they stock My Name Is Earl, which I've never seen but can't imagine it's a whole lot more highbrow than my beloved VM). After a day of trudging around looking for clothes for the shoot, I didn't really have the energy to tell him where he could stick the shelves of dreary and pretentious movies only film school nerds could love (and I doubt there would be room for them anyway, with the huge stick currently residing there), so I wandered up to Lackluster, which ALSO didn't carry VM. I asked for it--it wasn't just out of stock. The clerk there looked at me like I was a little nuts, but at least he wasn't mean about it (what IS it with these people?).  So, really, I had no choice (other than to watch something else last night, which was so not going to cut it).

The jacket is going well.

I'll probably keep going for another four inches or so on the body, then do a hem. I'm going to knit the sleeves at maximum fullness to the elbow, then decrease rapidly and do either 3/4 or full-length fitted sleeves. I don't think I'm going to do much more to the neck, possibly some short rows at the back to help with the fit, then a hem. The front edges are going to be a little trickier, but right now I'm considering a simple hemmed edge and some hooks and eyes. Or I may put eyelets into the hem and use some of the vintage buttons I have stockpiled around here somewhere.

I stopped into the Salvation Army yesterday on my way to Target and scored big on a couple of skirts that will look good with this sweater (another reason to keep working on it).

A Geoffrey Beene pencil skirt in *really* nice quality wool suiting fabric, charcoal with a chalk stripe.

And this kilt-y skirt from Bennetton, which still had the store tags on.

I'm toying with the idea of joining Wardrobe Remix as a way of keeping from just wearing the easiest possible thing every day. I have nice clothes, I should be wearing them. If I know that I'm going to be posting semi-daily pictures of my outfits for all the world to see, I'll be more likely to put some effort into what I'm wearing. On the other hand, I sort of hate joining groups and there's a self-congratulatory attitude about it that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. What to do, what to do....

Holy batwings, batman!

I've finally gotten to the point where I've divided for the sleeves and body on the black jacket.

The fabric drapes pretty well, so the  sleeves don't jut out like that. They actually hang pretty well already and will be even better once the fabric is washed. My thinking on where the sleeves go from here has been evolving though. My original plan was to just pinch the sleeves together at the armhole, like so:

There's something about this effect that I really like. However, I started thinking about how cool a contrasting hem facing would be. You can see the interior of the sleeve pretty clearly and I wanted to have something there that wasn't just the wrong side of the fabric. I have some shiny, smooth-spun cobalt mohair from Brooks Farm that would be ideal. In that case, the pinched-armhole trick wouldn't really work, because there won't be anywhere to tack the hem facing in that part of the sleeve. So I stopped the sleeves 2" before the length that I want them and will knit down 2" from the division point before doing the hem facing. That way I'll  have room to sew the facing down without being interrupted by the divide with the body, whether or not the facing itself is contrasting. I'm not sure anymore whether I actually want to introduce another color, since that would limit what I could wear this with.

And then I remembered this completely gorgeous sweater that I saw on the Sartorialist a few months ago (I wish homeboy would rig his site so you could link to specific images, but he hasn't) and now I'm thinking that I should do something like this, a modern, elegant take on the gigot sleeve. The proportions on mine would be different and I wouldn't bother with buttons on the cuff, but I think that the effect is just so pretty.

I have time to think about it—I'm not going to worry about the sleeves until I'm done with the body and I'm not interested in working with wool/mohair yarn for more than ten minutes these days. Maybe something else will occur to me in the meantime.

One for my knittas

I haven't written a solid knitting-related post in a while, mostly because I've been caught up doing other stuff. I *have* been knitting though.

Remember this sweater?

Well, I started my version.

It's going to be much more structured than the green one--looking at that saggy lower edge just makes me sad. I cast on provisionally at the top so I can add either a small standing collar or a simple hem facing later. The pattern is simple: reverse stockinette and columns of twisted knit stitches that are slipped on the wrong side. I'm knitting what's essentially a huge circle with an opening down the front. Once I get to elbow length (about 14" on me), I'll take an enormous number of  stitches off for the sleeves and continue with a fitted body. I have grand plans for some contrasting hem facings in the sleeves, possibly cobalt blue. And then patterned black and cobalt blue elbow-length (fingerless?)  gloves to wear with it.

All increases are done within the reverse stockinette areas. I had to rip out a few times because I couldn't get the increase rate right, but once I pulled out my Barbara Walker and read up on round yoke increases, it's been smooth sailing.  Since there are 31 ribs of reverse stockinette and I didn't want to increase more than two stitches per rib per increase round, I was limited to increasing 62 stitches at a time. What I remember of knitting round yokes in the past was something about doubling the number of stitches when you double the length (i.e., double the stitches after an inch, then after two, then four, etc.). Since I wanted to keep the number of stitches I was increasing at a time static, that wasn't going to work for me. The venerable Ms. Walker wrote that you just need to increase four stitches per round, so however many plain rounds you want to do between increases, you multiply by four and increase that number of stitches.

Alternately, you can work backwards: say you know you want to increase 62 stitches every time and need to find out how many rows to knit plain between increases in order to make a pleasingly proportioned jacket, you would divide 62 increase stitches by 4 stitches per round  (~16 rounds). I'm increasing every 12 rows instead, because  in order to achieve the exaggerated, flared silhouette I want, I need to cram more increase rounds into 14" than a 16-row repeat would give me.

We'll see how that all shakes out. I feel good about it though. Assuming it works out, I'll write the pattern up and put it up on the site. I think it could be a one-size-fits-all jobber. If you need a bigger body, you just take fewer stitches off for the sleeves.

In wacky research news, I spent yesterday afternoon in the library at the New-York Historical Society going through classified business directories from the 1890s. I may have made a breakthrough in terms of what I'm actually being paid to look for, but my delight in that paled in comparison to my delight in finding this entry: "Bruised Eyes Cured, Thomas Kean 1352 B'way." How did he cure them? Did people really look in what was essentially the Yellow Pages under "bruised" when they had a black eye? Today, I'm heading out to the New York County Clerk's office to look for records of corporations and partnerships that include the names I found yesterday.

[Edited to add: The difference between the last few days of dealing with extremely pleasant people who are used to helping researchers and today's trip into the bowels of the city offices is astounding. I learned why civil servants have such a bad reputation (lazy, rude, etc.): because they deserve it. It was not a fun afternoon.]

And for Claudia, who requested a better picture of the phone, your wish is my command (it's this one):