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January 13, 2006
Big sweater
Some of my long-time readers might remember this sweater. It's the first sweater I've ever made, and it was pretty much a disaster from the beginning. The worst part, though, was the extreme stretchy-ness of the yarn. What looked like a normal sized sweater could stretch to hold three adults. I tried to salvage it, but nothing was working. Finally I decided that the awesome power of felting might just save it. After all, if the wool fibers locked together, then the stretchy fibers wouldn't be able to stretch. (The yarn is Merino Stretch by Schoeller + Stahl, for those who are wondering.) Well, turns out my theory was right -- it's not stretchy anymore. But there are some other major problems. For example, do you see a proportion problem? This sweater is now basically a belly shirt for an extremely large man with monkey arms. Apparently when knitted fabric felts, it shrinks more vertically than horizontally. Now I know!
As you can see, the sweater is also now very LARGE. Here it is compared to a store-bought sweater that fits my husband. It seems a bit strange that felting a sweater would cause it to grow, but I think it must have something to do with the fact that it's ribbed, and felting made the fabric lie flat instead of scrunch up with ribbing.
I'm not really mad at this sweater anymore, because it's just been laying bunched up in my knitting basket for quite a while. Now, I just have a good story for my first sweater. Any ideas on what I should do with this monstrosity?
Posted by zarah at January 13, 2006 1:13 PM
