The sweater I once loved is turning out to be a real pain. I’m not a big fan of ripping, but it’s looking like round two of SKB ripping is about to commence.

Here’s the lace, sans beads. I like it a lot better this way!

Per the pattern, I’m about 20 rows from finishing the bodice of the sweater.

But, here’s what it looks like on me…

I love the fit, up to the bottom of the lace. But, when I switched back to the larger needles and started the increases, something went terribly wrong. This is supposed to be a fitted sweater, and it is not even close to fitting me around the waist! There are about 6 extra inches of ease that make the sweater balloon out around my stomach - not good. Also, I’m going to need to add a bit of length… 20 rows isn’t going to do it if I want the bottom of the sweater in the right place.

So, here’s my plan:

1. Rip back to the bottom of the purl ridges.

2. Re-knit using one needle size smaller.

3. No increasing for a few inches, then add just a few increases spaced farther apart than called for by the pattern.

4. Add enough length so the bottom of the sweater hits my “shirt length sweet spot”.

Also, I should note that my stitch and row gauge are right on. I think the reason that my sweater is turning out differently than the modeled sweaters is the difference between the drape and structure of 100% silk yarn (Tilli Tomas) and 100% merino wool (Malabrigo). The Malabrigo doesn’t “grow” lengthwise like the silk would… its stitches stay right where they are knit. The moral of the story is that when substituting yarn, there are other things to consider besides row and stitch gauge.

I was speeding right along on Simple Knitted Bodice (SKB), until I got to the section where the beading starts.

Here’s where I’m at with it now - done with the first set of purl ridges and 2.5 lace repeats (out of 5 or 6 total).

Knitting with the beads really slows me down. First, I have to string the beads on the yarn, then I have to figure out how to space the beads somewhat randomly, using the right amount of beads. Since I’m knitting from two balls of yarn (no pooling for me!), I decided to string beads on one ball, putting beads on every other row. The whole process is fairly tedious, and so far I’m ambivalent about the result.

Does this look weird? Are the beads too much? They definitely distract a bit from the pattern, and they are kind of dark compared to the yarn. I decided to use the coffee colored beads because they were by far the least expensive (2 cents/bead, compared to 10 cents/bead for all the others), most readily available (I’ll need about 400 or more of them and am not patient enough to do a special order), and most people thought they looked nice in my swatch.

I’m not really the kind of person that wears beaded clothing. In fact, I don’t think I have a single thing in my closet that is beaded, other than maybe a cocktail dress or two. I’m worried that even if this sweater turns out wonderfully that it won’t be my style because of the beads. So, do I trudge forward and rip later if I hate the beads? Or, do I save myself the trouble and do it now?

In other fiber related topics - does anyone watch the Discovery Channel show “Dirty Jobs“? Or, more likely, is there a man in your life who is obsessed with watching it? Todd watches it religiously, and was playing the latest episode from the DVR while I was knitting tonight. Normally, I don’t really care for the show - it can get pretty disgusting sometimes. (past shows have included an avian vomitologist and casino food recycler) But the 8/22 episode featured an alpaca farm! The host of the show visited an alpaca farm in Shingle Springs, CA, sheared an alpaca, and learned to card the fiber and spin it. Cool! I’m not sure how that qualifies for a “dirty job”, but it was definitely fun to watch.

Did a lot of this: (probably close to 30 miles!)

On trails like this:

Steeper than it looks!

To get to places like this:

Vernal Falls

And this:

Dog Lake

And this:

May Lake

Saw lots of these near our campsite and on trails:

We saw a few bears too, right in our campsite! Yikes!

Finally, did a bit of this:

I’m done with the increase section of the Simple Knitted Bodice. So far, so good! I’ll be trying it on later tonight - hopefully it fits and I can put the sleeves on holders. These 300+ stitch rows are killing me!

Thanks to those who gave input on the beads! The majority of people liked either the coffee, bronze, or large green beads, with a few votes for gold. I’m thinking the gold might be a bit on the bling-y side of things, as the beads really stand out on the swatch. I really wish that I could find the green beads in a smaller size. I’m going to hunt around a bit and see if I can come across some smaller green glass beads. Can anyone recommend an online bead store? If I don’t find smaller green beads, I’m going to use the coffee colored glass beads. The bronze beads are great too, but in person they don’t have the depth of the glass beads.

Now, I’m off to Vegas for the weekend, with all liquid and gel-like substances safely packed away in my checked luggage. Grrrr. I wasn’t planning on checking any luggage for such a short trip. At least I can still take my knitting on the plane!

Back on Monday with pictures of the stole…

Yesterday, I spent my lunch hour at various bead stores trying to pick out beads that would work well with the Malabrigo yarn that I bought for the Simple Knitted Bodice sweater. [an aside - love the pattern, but what kind of a name is that? Isn’t that what all sweaters are… simple knitted bodices?]

Here’s the yarn I ordered. This is my first experience with Malabrigo, and from what I can tell, it really is as fabulous as everyone says. It’s softer than Manos, and about 2/3 the price. I haven’t seen the Tilli Tomas yarn that the pattern calls for in person, but I’m guessing this is as close as I’ll get in a wool yarn.

I picked out 9 different beads to swatch with the yarn. Unfortunately, my two favorite beads didn’t have big enough holes to work with the yarn. I suspected as much when I bought them, but thought I’d try anyway. So, I ended up swatching with 7 different beads:

Note that the bottom 2/3 of my swatch looks really pretty awful. I didn’t exactly think about what I was doing before I started swatching. I just took a look at the lace pattern, thought to myself, “easy, peasy!”, and cast on. Well, if I had thought about it a little bit, I would have realized that this sweater is worked in the round. So, every other row of the lace pattern is a knit row. Since I was knitting the swatch flat, I should have made those rows into purl rows to keep a stockinette pattern on the front side. Oops! I realized my mistake after I had already knit in 2/3 of the beads, and didn’t want to rip out all the beadwork, so the last 1/3 of the swatch is right. Hopefully you can still get a good feel for how the beads look in the incorrectly knit section.

Here’s my opinion on the beads (top to bottom):

Coffee colored glass - I like these quite a bit. They are warm and add a bit of contrast. They also look similar to the amber beads in the TT Rockstar Burnt Olive yarn.

Large green glass - I like these too, but worry they might be too big. These are similar to the green beads in the TT Rockstar Olive yarn.

Gold colored glass - Eh, not bad. I’m undecided.

Small green with brown swirls - These are kind of cool, but they blend in to the yarn and are barely visible. If I’m going to go to the trouble of using beads, I’d like to be able to see them!

Silver colored glass - The cool color of these beads doesn’t really go with the yarn.

Bronze beads - Similar to the coffee colored glass, but I think I like the transparency of the glass beads better.

Irridescent multi-color - My least favorite. I thought the mix of colors would be cool. It’s not.

Overall, I’d have to say the top three beads are my favorite, but I’m completely undecided. Please leave a comment and let me know which beads I should use for the sweater. Thanks!