Open Eye Tunic - Finished!

Finally finished.  I sewed one of the inserts in yesterday and sewed the other one in this morning.  It is hard to get a good photo.  The seaming was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  For the inserts I sewed one side and the cast off edge to the body.  I was going to sew one side and the cast on edge, but the cast on edge didn't really provide a good basis for the seam.

This is the first time I've used a Unique Sheep Gradiance set for clothing rather than a shawl, but I don't think it will be the last.  I have a silk charmeuse outfit that will go perfectly under this - a sleeveless top and matching pants that should match the darker colors, but with my gimpy knee I didn't really feel like modeling today.

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - Second Insert Done

I have finally finished the second insert for my Open Eye Tunic.  Now I can assemble it and move on to another project.  I have plenty waiting in the wings.  I have been on a sweater kick and have been buying yarn for several sweater projects, some fairly simple, others full of lace.  Blocking this was made a lot more difficult by the fact that I had surgery on my left knee yesterday (to remove an icky skin thing) and can only bend it a little bit.  It makes getting up and down awkward, and I am slow moving around the house and especially going up and down stairs.  But it just gives me another excuse to stay on the day bed knitting all weekend (as if I need any).

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - One Side Insert Done

After a couple of false starts, I've finally finished one of the side inserts.  I used some of each skein of the set - obviously skeins 5 and 6 dominate as I didn't use those skeins in the body.  When I sew the inserts to the body I'll sew the cast on edge (the bottom edge in the picture) to the front and one of the side edges to the back.  I ended up doing 21 repeats of the Cane Stitch chart and used 66 grams of yarn.


Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - Front and Back Done and Joined

I actually finished up the front and joined the front to the back at the beginning of September and then I started on the side inserts.  I was knitting away on the inserts on size 5 needles (I had done them both on size 7 but had ripped them out when I started the tunic over on size 5) and had gotten one almost finished when I realized that I was not going to make it.  It wasn't that I was going to run out of yarn, I just hadn't been using it up the way I needed to.  I figured out that I used 2 grams of yarn for every 3 rows of the Cane Stitch chart and that I needed to do 20 repeats of the chart.  Some quick math revealed that I basically needed to use up all of skeins 5 and 6, as well as all of my leftover yarn from the body, so I ripped back.  Then as I was knitting away, carefully weighing and counting I suddenly remembered that I needed to use some of skein 4 to do the armhole and neck edging.  Fortunately I realized this while I was still working with skein 5.  I took a quick break from the inserts and took care of the neck and armhole edges.  Fortuitously, it took exactly the amount of yarn that I had previously used when I was working the insert that I had almost finished - 6 grams.  So, here is the front and back joined and with the edging worked.  I did sew a little bit of the side seams, just enough so I could pick up the stitches around the armhole.  I am currently working repeat 18 on my first insert, and it looks like my yarn usage estimate is a little conservative (I try to always err on the conservative side) as I am only on skein 4.

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - Front Done and Blocking

I finished up the front this afternoon.  As on the back, I repeated the eyelet chart twice in the shoulder straps.  Once it is dry I'll join the front and the back using a three-needle bind-off, then I'll start sewing the side seams and figure out how big the side inserts need to be.


Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - Back Done and Blocked

I finished up the back last night.  It took me several tries before I liked the way the armhole and neck shaping came out.  The pattern calls for repeating the eyelet chart twice and then repeating the last 4 rows of the eyelet chart until the armhole is the appropriate length, but I found that the k2tog, yo rows made the upper part of that section wider than the rest, so I did another repeat of the eyelet chart, which put me at the perfect armhole length and then went right into the neck and shoulder shaping.  I did a total of 14 repeats of the eyelet chart before I started the shaping, which makes my tunic 28 inches long, measured from the underarm.  The pattern calls for 21.5 inches.

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - Thirteen Repeats of Eyelet Chart Done

Skein 3 of my 6 skein set was especially generous so I did 5 repeats of the eyelet chart with it instead of 4.  I also wanted a little more length on the tunic, several of the people that have already completed the pattern have commented on the fact that it seems a little short as specified in the pattern.  My 4th skein is also generous so I'm going to do one more repeat of the eyelet chart before I start the armhole shaping.  The next time you see this project I should be blocking the back.  I've also raveled the side inserts and they are almost dry.  I may have to make them a little bigger than the 15 inches by 15 inches specified in the pattern so that the tunic will fit through the hips.

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - Eight repeats of the Eyelet Chart Done

I finished another 4 repeats of the eyelet chart on my Open Eye Tunic today with skein 2.  I had to start skein 3 one row early because I am switching yarns at the edge and have to make the colors match when I do the switch.  I really should be working on my August Crochet Blocks but I am having too much fun with this project.  The lace pattern is pretty easy to memorize as well as execute, even with the decreases on the wrong side.  And the rows are short and the whole thing just moves along quite quickly, and before you know it you've done another repeat of the chart.

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - 4 repeats of eyelet chart done

I started this on US 7 (4.5 mm) needles but I wasn't really happy with the fabric that I was getting and then I made a mistake while I was working the second repeat of the chart so I decided to rip it out and start over again on smaller needles.  The pattern called for US 7 and I got the pattern gauge on US 7 needles.  I had also swatched with US 5 (3.75) needles so I already had a good sense of the gauge, and I prefer US 5 needles with fingering weight yarn so that is what I went with.  I cast on 103 stitches (basically went up a size) and figure that I'll have to do 15 repeats of the chart (total) to get the length required by the pattern.  Knowing that I am using 6 grams of yarn per repeat, some quick math revealed that the front and back (30 repeats total) would use approximately 180 grams of yarn.  At 50 grams per skein, that means I need 3.6 skeins for the body.  I have a 6 skein set and have already set aside skeins 5 and 6 for the side inserts, which leaves skeins 1-4 for the body.  Perfect.  I decided to make it really easy on myself and just do 4 repeats of the chart in each skein.  This uses a little less than half the skein and makes it easy to remember when to switch skeins.  Here are the first 4 repeats using skein 1.  I have already done the first row of the 5th repeat and you can start to see the electric blue in skein 2.  I'll ravel the side inserts this weekend and get that yarn ready to be used again (skein it, soak it, and hang it up to dry).

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - One Side Insert Done

With Bloomsbury blocking I am finally able to start on my Open Eye Tunic.  I received my yarn from The Unique Sheep on June 24 - Electric Blue Flame on Tinsel Toes.  It is not as electric as it would be on a pure silk, but I am not a big fan of pure silk yarn.  I decided to start with skein 6, the left-most skein in the above photo and start by knitting the side inserts.  Then I am going to switch to skein 1, the right-most skein when I start working the body.

One of the really frustrating things about this pattern was the fact that the lace has written directions only, no charts.  I charted both lace patterns, and then made some mods to the Eyelet Lace Chart that is used for the body.  I use Knit Visualizer as my charting software and was able to export the lace charts as .png files and then import them into Word Perfect and convert the file to pdf, which I then pulled into Knit Companion, a knitting app for the iPad.  This is my first time knitting from Knit Companion and I have to say that I love it.  As an engineer I appreciate things that are well-designed (one of the main reasons I bought a Honda Element) and this app is extremely well-designed.  It also has terrific in-app help.

After getting my charts set up in Knit Companion, I cast on the first side insert.  I did 9 repeats of the chart as instructed and went to check my measurements.  I was fine on the stitches, but there was no way that I could stretch the 9 repeats out to 15 inches, so I kept knitting.  Unfortunately, when I had done my calculations I had figured that I could get both side inserts out of skein 6, but only if I was doing 9 repeats.  I ended up switching to skein 5 on row 3 of the 10th repeat and did 12.5 repeats to get to the right dimensions.

The piece is actually upside down, the cast off edge is at the bottom and the cast on edge is at the top.  If I were a really aggressive blocker I could probably have gotten by with fewer repeats of the pattern, but I am not a really aggressive blocker and do not believe in stretching yarn to within a millimeter of its life.

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke (Interweave Knits, Summer 2013)
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Open Eye Tunic - Swatching

Have you seen the latest issue of Interweave Knits?  The picture above was taken from their web site.  When I saw this pattern I knew that I had to make it, and I knew that it would be stunning in a Unique Sheep Gradiance.  First I checked out the yarn called for - Anzula Luxury Fibers Breeze (65% silk, 35% linen; 750 yd [684 m]/4 oz [114 g]), worked with the yarn held double.  Ah ha, I said to myself, maybe I can substitute one of the Unique Sheep fingering weight yarns and then not have to work with the yarn held double, which frankly I just don't like to do.  At first I thought about using Luxe, because it is my favorite Unique Sheep fingering weight yarn, but then I was working on my Ardent Spring shawl and realized that Tinsel Toes would be a better choice.

Once I finished up my Ardent Spring shawl I had a little ball of Tinsel Toes left over from the border so after that shawl was blocked I started swatching.  First I swatched with size 5 needles, my default needles with fingering weight yarns.  The eyelet lace instructions were written only, no chart, and I am a chart knitter when it comes to lace so I charted the lace pattern as I knit it.  I tried charting it before I knit it, but it is one of those lace patterns that changes stitch counts on some of the rows so it was a bit tricky.  As I knit that first repeat of the pattern I realized that I wanted to make some modifications to it, so did a further two repeats with my modifications.  This resulted in the following swatch:

This swatch is a little smaller than the gauge called for in the pattern (5 stitches and 5.5 rows per inch) so I pulled out my size 7 needles, which are the size called for in the pattern and did two repeats of my modified chart.  This resulted in the following swatch:

Which is just about perfectly on gauge.

I also charted and knit a gauge swatch in the Cane Stitch that forms the side panels on the size 7 needles.

And once again had everything work out perfectly.

When things work out this perfectly, this easily, I take it as a sign from the universe that the project will go well so I went ahead and ordered my yarn.  Because I am not going to have to hold my yarn doubled I will need about half as much yarn as the pattern calls for, with some extra for buffer, so I decided to get 300 g, which will give me about 1200 yards.  It didn't take me long to settle on a color - Electric Blue Flame.  I am going to do the inserts in the light yellow, and then start the body with the dark skein.  I am also going to get some silk and sew a lining for the tunic so I don't have to worry about what to wear underneath it.

Pattern:  Open Eye Tunic by Deborah Helmke, Interweave Knits Summer 2013
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Electric Blue Flame, swatches done in Rumpelstiltskin
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)