Tag Archives: Eris

I am a bad, bad blogger. Sorry about that! I meant to take photos two weeks ago, but I had too many other things to do before I skipped town for a few days. Then I got back, but other things conspired against me. For example, my finicky car decided to cry out for attention, and dealing with that sucked up all of my free daylight hours for the past couple of days.

Anyway, time to play catch up!

At the very end of September, I finally decided to bid Eris a not-so-fond farewell.

It’s really not through any fault in the pattern. Well, unless you want to count “not catering to my really short and kinda thick arms” as a fault… which I don’t. Because I actually recommend the pattern – the charts are a good size, and the instructions are very clear and easy to follow.

No, the fault is all mine. I had to rework the sleeves, which ended up spawning some lovely mini-disasters. First, I made some stupid math mistakes. Then, on the second time around, there was the rounding error, resulting in a sleeve that was so close and yet so far from fitting properly. The third time would have been the charm. But…

My weight’s been kind of up and down over the past couple of years. At this time last year, I was nearly ten pounds heavier than I was when I’d started Eris; I’ve lost that weight and more since then. So even though the sleeves finally fit on the third time around, the body no longer did.

As suggested by some readers, I did try and see if I could take it in on the sides a bit, maybe put in a few darts. But there’s just way too much extra fabric around the middle, and I can’t be bothered to deal with this anymore; my heart’s just not in it.

Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

I feel like I’ve passed some sort of milestone, or gone through some rite of passage, since this is the first major project I’ve ever frogged. And like many milestones, this triggered a number of different emotions. I’m sad and disappointed that the sweater didn’t work out like I’d hoped. But it definitely wasn’t a complete waste of time. The cables were very much a joy to knit. And as disastrous as the sleeves were, they were actually a pretty good exercise for me… I have a better idea on how to rework things now, so I’m grateful for that experience.

Well, the good thing about Eris is that so far, the sleeves actually fit comfortably. Only took three tries within two years…

The bad thing about Eris is that the body no longer fits properly. Well, not the way I want it to, anyway.

I’ve lost fifteen pounds in the past six months. Therefore, this sweater is now significantly larger than I’d like.

It’s very comfortable, which would be lovely if this were a bumming-around-the-house sweater. However, this was supposed to be an out-and-about pullover. And for the most part, I prefer closely fitting garments for when I’m out of the house. My most oversized sweater only has about 3 inches of ease. Eris, on the other hand, now has approximately 5 inches of ease.

I’ve had so many problems with the fit of this sweater, I’m wondering if it just wasn’t meant to be. I don’t know what’s worse – spending all this time on it and then frogging it, or spending all this time and more on it and then stuffing it into the back of a drawer. Thoughts, anyone?

This is Eris before I wore it around the house for several nights in a row:

And this is Eris after:

I had really hoped that wearing it would make the sleeves relax enough, but no luck there. Unfortunately, like I mentioned in a previous post, sometimes even a quarter of an inch makes a difference.

Besides, if I’m not entirely happy with it, I’m never going to wear it, and there’s no point in having knit this if I’m not going to get any use out of it. Reknitting, here I come!

At first, I thought the problem was entirely with the gauge changing post-wash. But when the body relaxed to the point I wanted it to, and the sleeves remained slightly uncomfortable, I realized that the gauge change wasn’t the biggest part of the problem.

I’d come up with a sleeve formula on my own. I’m in between sizes as far as upper arm circumference goes, and the proportions in the pattern as written are all wrong for me, given how short my arms are. So when I realized that the gauge wasn’t the real issue, I figured that I’d screwed up the calculations somewhere.

But I looked back at my old notes, and it turns out that after a string of perfect math, I’d rounded down instead of up to get an even stitch count at the beginning. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal. But given the gauge, that’s nearly a half-inch difference in circumference right there. And now I feel really silly for making that particular mistake.

Oh well, lesson learned. It’s my first sweater, so I’m entitled to some learning experiences, right?

Yay, I win!

1. Make those long-overdue FO posts – Done!
2. Post more frequently – Done! (Though given that I only posted two entries last month and three the month before that, this wasn’t that hard…)
3. Complete at least two tiers of the Forest Path Stole – Done!
4. Work on at least one other WIP – Done! Granted, it was just one underarm seam and then a couple of rows for a toe sock, but that still counts, right?
5. Start my mother’s cable-and-bobble hat – Done!

New goals this month:

1. Finish Eris
2. Finish Mom’s cable-and-bobble hat
3. Finish at least one sock (either the second River Rapids sock, or a toe sock)
4. Complete at least two tiers of the Forest Path Stole
5. Re-start Channel Pullover
6. Start Odessa

Regarding goal #1: It turns out that I’m not completely crazy and that I did try on the sleeves while working on the sweater. In fact, I even ripped and re-knit a sleeve because it didn’t fit. Jessica thinks that maybe it shrunk a bit in the wash, which I suppose is possible. I mean, I did wash my swatches, but maybe the water temperature was slightly different on the day I chucked the actual sweater in the machine?

In any case, there’s only so much blocking I can do, given that it’s a cotton/acrylic sweater. So I’m leaning toward re-knitting the sleeves. It’s going to suck, especially since I already wove in the ends and grafted the cuff and everything. But it won’t be completely impossible, and I think in the long run I’ll be happier with the sweater.

I’m probably going to take Kristen’s advice for the next few days – pretend that it’s OK and work on something else. I figure that if I stop obsessing about it for a week or so, I’ll be able to look at it with a clearer head and then make a final decision.

Edit: You know how overthinking something can make you overlook the obvious? Well, Kris suggested something that should have occured to me from the very beginning. I’ll try wearing Eris around the house for the next couple of evenings to see if that relaxes the sleeves enough. It might actually work, given how close the measurement already is.

Of course, this does mean that I have to seam the other underarm first…