The Finishing Faeries Have Been Delayed

The knitting portion of my Sommelier sweater is finally complete.

I had to tweak the back neck band a bit to get it to fit better. In spite of my experience with the specified stitch pickup counts for the front bands, I went ahead and picked up the designated number of stitches for the neck band. Readers Reader Internet, I'm not sure why I was surprised that the stated 136 stitches were too many. The band bowed/sagged out out in back so I ripped them out and picked up 12 fewer stitches. It's still not quite right but it is definitely in the 'good enough' range at this point.

This project has certainly dragged on well past my interest level, in large part due to initial irritations with the pattern but subsequently from the suspicion that the sweater is not really flattering for me*. It's challenging to feel excited about finishing a sweater that one likely won't wear.

The pattern only specifies steam blocking but I wet blocked everything since the steam blocking didn't give the result I wanted (i.e., removing the stockinette curling at tops of sleeves and edges of armholes and really opening up the lace pattern).

There's no mention in the pattern of sewing in the sleeves, the pattern simply ends with completing the shoulder seams, neck/front bands and the armhole bindings (not present on the sweater version of this pattern and apparently just a repeated section from the vest portion of the pattern).

I left the blocked pieces out for the faeries to complete in the night, however they seem to have been delayed as the sweater parts have been laying about for two evenings now with no finishing activity at all. Perhaps the blatant disregard for the dictated steam blocking has violated some faerie union working conditions clause?

I suppose at this point I need to assume they aren't coming and move forward on my own. Darn.



*Yes, I know I tried on the sample sweater and thought it looked fine. I now suspect that I may have been under the influence of the excitement of Madrona , yarn and fiber fumes in the marketplace and the exuberant encouragement of enabling knitter friends.