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All Sewn Up

My Arequita Tunic is FINISHED! It’s currently having it’s bath and I’ll lay it out flat to dry as soon as I am done with this post. So ok… there’s still blocking to complete. And then trimming the ends.

But I finished knitting it, seaming it, and weaving in the ends. Sooo many ends.

A couple days after my last post, I decided to sew up the shoulders and part of the side seams. I had two reasons for this:

  1. Try it on to check fit and see how long it would need to be. I don’t always need tops as long as written: short person here! Though most of the shortness is (isn’t?) in my legs.
  2. Complete all the seams which required the light pink yarn, so I could eek out as many rows as possible in the body with it, and not have the fear of literally not being able to sew it up.

The instructions just say to sew shoulder and side seams, but the HOW is left to the knitter. The first couple rows of the top are actually garter, so I decided it would look nicer if I didn’t try to turn that to the inside as a bulky seam, but rather sewed it flat edge-to-edge with a back and forth stitch, catching the garter bumps:

Close up of the shoulder seam to the Arequita tunic showing how I am joining front and back shoulder with a flat seam that leaves the garter edge visible on the outside.

I think it looks quite nice and goes with the texture of the garter edge on the tunic, as well as the texture of the yarn.

Similarly, with the little column of lace yarn-overs along the edge, and the slipped stitches on each edge, a traditional mattress stitch for the side seams in which you get 1/2 a stitch from each edge turned to the inside didn’t seam as nice. Again, I matched it flat edge-to-edge and did a sort of “faux” mattress stitch back and forth. The texture blends in nicely with the decorative garter border, and makes it look almost like a little lace panel down the side. I’ll try for even nicer pictures of the side seam once blocked.

Knit tunic in a dusty rose with a lace inset at the neck and two knit insets in Instarsia at either side of the waist in a dark greyish purple contrast yarn. Left image is of the back, with sides pinned together. Top right shows how the sides are being sewn together flat, and the lower right is of the front of the tunic.

My test fit before blocking suggests it’s going to fit quite nicely.I’m hoping that over time the lace inset shapes itself into a slightly curved neckline. Even at only 50% wool, it promises to be fairly warm as well. But I’ll need to reassess when I’m not trying it on during a heat wave. I am pretty darned proud of myself for finishing this while it’s been so hot. Today is our first properly nice day in two weeks.

I’ve also been prepping today for my Virtual Workshop through FiberWorld 2020 with Cecilia Ho of FeltasticFashion. Her works are amazing so I’m really excited to learn from her. I’ll post more after I’ve taken the class. I have also attended some of the talks and such that are part of FiberWorld, and it’s been pretty cool. I haven’t checked out the Vendor Booth option, because I’m really just not shopping for more yarn and fluff right now.

Speaking of yarn… I don’t think I showed July’s Clan of Igor yarn yet. For a colorway titled “Sometimes, Dead is Better”, it’s really very cheery:

Two skeins of “Sometimes Dead is Better” sky blue and grass green DK yarn from the July 2020 Clan of Igor subscription sitting on top of the accompanying pamphlet about the Pet Sememtary movie inspiration of the colors.

Petra explains in the little pamphlet that they deliberately tried to “resurrect” dyes they rarely used in this colorway, and while it might have been colors and combos outside their usual dying comfort-zone, it’s absolutely one of my favs to date. August’s is even better, but I won’t reveal that yet when it’s only just arrived and my shipment doesn’t have far to travel.

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