Bloomsbury Pullover - Finished!

I finished up my third Camp Loopy project this past weekend.  I ended up doing 11.5 repeats of the lace chart total on the arms and then finishing off the sleeves with a couple of rows of garter stitch to help prevent curling.  I did not do any increases or decreases on the sleeves.  I tried the pullover on last night and it fits like a dream and the yarn feels wonderful.  Of course the back of this pullover is more interesting than the front.

I cast on extra stitches at the beginning so I could make it more symmetric, centered the lace design on the sleeves and did the entire lace chart on the sleeves.


Pattern:  Bloomsbury by Svetlana Volkova
Yarn:  madelinetosh tosh vintage in Clematis
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm) and US 6 (4.0 mm)

Bloomsbury - Body Done

As I approached the bottom of the body, I was confronted with a couple of decisions:  how long to make it? and what to do about the ribbing?  I don't like sweaters that fit tightly across the hips, and the problem that I always have with ribbing is the bind off.  The only way I have every found to bind off in such a way as to not have the bottom too tight is to do an Elizabeth Zimmerman sewn bind off.  As I was getting close to a decision point I also was a little worried about using enough yarn.  It then occurred to me that one way to help ensure I used enough yarn would be to make it more of a tunic style, than the classic pullover with ribbing.  I was going to leave the body unfinished and do the sleeves and then finish up the body making sure I used 800 yards, but then I would have to deal with leaving the body stitches on one or more needles.  In the end I decided to split the front and back, keep the three edge stitches in garter stitch and do 1 more repeat of the chart on the back and 12 rows of stockinette on the front and finish up with a couple of garter stitch rows to help keep the bottom from curling.

Pattern:  Bloomsbury by Svetlana Volkova
Yarn:  madelinetosh tosh vintage in Clematis
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm) and US 6 (4.0 mm)

Bloomsbury - Ready to start the body

This is my 3rd Camp Loopy Project.  The requirements are pretty easy - just use 800 yards.  For the last two years I've done top down raglans in Fiesta Boomerang, a pattern I have down cold at this point.  This year I wanted to do something a little more challenging so I picked Bloomsbury by Svetlana Volkova, a top down raglan that has some lovely lace patterning on the sleeves and down the back.  I cast on August 1 after getting home from work, but it has taken me a couple of tries to get it to this point.  It took me two tries to get it to this point following the pattern, only to spot a missed increase.  I decided to rip back because there was no way that I could fix it, and while I was ripping I decided to modify the pattern.

The original pattern has you start out with just a few stitches for the front and do increases on every round, and the lace pattern on the sleeves is missing the column of eyelets on the side towards the front, so the scalloping from the center lace panel lies along the front increases.  It does create an interesting line, but I wanted more symmetry.

I cast on 108 stitches and did 8 rows of rib, but instead of starting with k2, I started with k1 (p2, k2) ending with a k1.  I always do this with k2, p2 ribbing when knitting in the round.  It splits one of the k2s across the round marker which I think makes the transition from the ribbing to stockinette look cleaner.  When I started the set up row I realized that I had messed up my math so I did some on the fly adjustments to keep the symmetry of the lace in relation to the ribbing.  This gave me 32 stitches for the back and 24 stitches for the sleeves, but only 28 stitches for the front.  Turns out I should have cast on 112 stitches - curse lace patterns that have varying stitch counts.  I really didn't feel like ripping back, yet again, so I increased 4 stitches evenly across the front.  Close enough.  Some things you have to rip back for, some things you don't.

When it comes to indie designers, I don't worry so much about matching their gauge.  I have found that with indie patterns you can really see the variation in how people knit.  I did a gauge swatch, got a fabric I liked and went from there.  The pattern calls for 4 stitches and 5 rows per inch, I ended up with 4.5 stitches and 6 rows per inch.  Based upon my gauge I figured I need to do 3 repeats of the lace pattern before I cast on the underarm stitches and started the body.  I did 9 sets of increases all the way around (on the even rows) and then reduced the frequency of the increases on the sleeve sections ( to every 4th row), but maintained the frequency of the increases on the front and the back until I finished the third repeat.  This gave me 18 increases on the front and back sections and 13 increases on the sleeves.  My stitch count at the end of all this was 68 stitches on the front and back and 50 stitches on the sleeves.
Front:

Back:

Pattern:  Bloomsbury by Svetlana Volkova
Yarn:  madelinetosh tosh vintage in Clematis
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm) and US 6 (4.0 mm)