Frustrations

The good news is that the top-down Arwen is completely knitted and blocked, and looking good, if I do say so myself.


The bad news is that I have somehow lost the custom-color-and-length zipper I had chosen for it from a special custom zipper store downtown. It's not a huge deal; the zipper cost me only like $2.75 and about 20 minutes of matching colors, but it's frustrating because I had reserved this afternoon to sew in the zipper and be finished with this puppy!



These photos show the value of the nonexistent zipper: I had to hold the fronts closed for the photo shoot because they are wont to curl outward along the same curve as the one the hood makes as it flips over the shoulders. Also evident is the fact that without a zipper to anchor the fronts, it's pretty easy for them to get slightly off-kilter from one another and make one side look shorter. It's not.

The hood from the back looks quite nice. I waffled for quite a while on the sleeve cuffs, between finishing them with another cable or with a folded-in hem. In the end I went for the hem, partly to make life easier for myself with no grafting of live stitches to side selvedge, and partly to avoid cutesiness that might arise from too much matching cable. I didn't want to distract from the lovely focal point of the sweater.

I am hoping that this sweater fits my sister a little better than me. She tried it on numerous times before I divided for the yoke, and the sleeves seemed to be the right size for her. On me they seem a little too wide at the top. She is also a little slimmer and longer altogether in the torso and has much smaller hips, for which I planned when executing the shaping. I am hoping that the little wrinkles along the back from being hiked up on my butt will not appear when Sarah wears the sweater.

Tomorrow after class I will run out and get another zipper, I guess -- the zipper store is only about 6 blocks from my grad school, so it won't be a herculean effort. And of course, the moment I sew in the new one I will find the old one...