Thursday, March 23, 2006

The Incredible Stretching Sweater

I finished up the Hourglass as planned Tuesday night. I tried it on and it fit perfectly - sleeves perfect, neckline perfect, length perfect. Everything perfectemundo. So I gave it a nice little bath and layed it out gently on a soft towel, smoothed it and went to bed feeling rather superior. You see I read the Hourglass KAL page - I knew all the pitfalls - I had an extra skein of yarn, I made 3 extra sets of neck decreases to avoid the too big neck, yes I was pretty pleased with myself. I may have even gone so far as to say aloud to my husband that I have perfect guage. Well can you see where I'm going here? Wednesday AM, my sweater still looks lovely, in fact the stitches are now looking dare I say it? - perfect. Wednesday afternoon - feeling almost breathless - I try on the Hourglass, and what the ??? The sleeves are now at least 3 inches longer dragging on my knuckles, the neckline - bra straps sticking out WIDE, and the length now hitting at the widest part of my hips....huhh?? My cute little Hourglass is now a tunic.



OK this mirror shot stinks - it is really hard to take a picture of yourself in the mirror - I kept getting all mixed up trying to center myself with everything being opposite in this really weird way. Anyhow this shot doesn't really show the length problems, but look at that droopy armpit!

Paul finally took pity on me and took this picture which shows the crazy-long sleeves.

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I've never had this happen before, was it the silk content in the Noro Cash Iroha? (as an aside - it does drape nicely though)

So what do I do now? I'm wondering can I rip back the bottom of the sleeves and re-hem them? I think I could live with it if the sleeves were at least the right length. Maybe run a length of elastic through the neckline to help keep it in place? Re-block it and try to squish it all back in place? Any thoughts out there??? Please.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This must be the Knitter's worst nightmare... I surely would have wept in your shoes!
I am at a loss to advise you on how to rectify the situation. I don't think washing and re-blocking will make any difference. I would attempt, as you suggested, to shorten the sleeves as they seem to be the main problem. The rest I would leave. It is a great sweater. Don't give up on it!