My Brother's Reflection Aran Pullover

I gave my brother the Reflection Aran Pullover today.



It fits! I was mostly concerned about the arms because my brother's rather muscular thanks to the amount he plays baseball and the physical labor job he's got. But it does fit him quite well.

My brother though, he really should be a model.


I think he likes it:



I made him sign copies of the rules and copied all the blog entries on the sweater and the email I sent to my family with pictures of the sweater. Then I blew up the photo I took where I spliced his head onto the sweater. And I bound it all up. I'll bring a copy to SNB this week.

Sweater Rules

Ok, ok, ok! I know I've been like milking this sweater for what it's worth, but just two more posts on it and then I'll get back to the Uptown Boot Socks or Icarus or Ann's Midnight Dot Mittens or even start in on the Wedgewood Blouse.

I think, however, that I have a finalized list of rules for my brother and his Reflection Aran Pullover:

Sweater Rules

1. Your sweater has a name. It's called The Reflection Aran Pullover


2. The Reflection Aran Pullover must not be placed in the dryer. When in doubt - dryclean it.


3. You shall not give The Reflection Aran Pullover to ANYONE.


4. You are not to offer the creator's* knitting services to anyone. I made this for you because I love you.


5. At no point during the life of The Reflection Aran Pullover shall you say "it doesn't fit." I don't care if it fits. It's more a gift of an infinite amount of precious finitude fromone human to anohter as a token of love than it is a wearable garment. Once you see it this way, we shall have no problems.


6. At no point during the life of The Reflection Aran Pullover shall you say that you "don't like it." For rationale, see above.
   
7. Whenever someone admires The Reflection Aran Pullover verbally, you shall respond "Thank you, my sister made it for me." Please emphasize the word "made."


8. The creator of The Reflection Aran Pullover is exempt from giving the recipient a birthday present this year.


9. Upon receipt of The Reflection Aran Pullover, you shall grant the creator a good photograph of you wearing it.**


10. You shall not wear The Reflection Aran Pullover for a normal day of work.


11. Horsing around in The Reflection Aran Pullover is in direct violation of this contract.


12. Should you die, you shall leave The Reflection Aran Pullover to the creator.


13. You shall wear The Reflection Aran Pullover to at least one extended family event at which the creator is present.

* The name of the creator can be found on the nifty label that is attached to The Reflection Aran Pullover if you flip up the front ribbing on the left hand side of the garment as you're wearing it.
** Since the word "good" is subjective, the creator will decide whether the quality of the photograph taken is up to snuff.

These rules seem reasonable to me.

Tale of a Handknit Sweater

First things first. I have to thank Kim! Kim, I got your package last week (or was it even the week before? It was a Friday regardless). Dudes, check out what Kim sent me - a full Rhody Package (complete with coffee milk syrup, not pictured):


At the Today Show for the Yarn Harlot's Represent Tour, I mentioned to Kim how it was practically impossible to get your hands on a skein of Socks that Rock. So she sent me some! In a Rhode Island Red (that's the state bird rooster of RI) colorway!! I recently got her some yarn, and something else....but I can't give away any extraneous info before she gets the package! Now I have to find a fun pattern for the socks!!

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And now for the post you've been waiting for...on to the sweater!

I got out of work around 3:00 pm on Friday since it was Good Friday and my company realized that people were going to be traveling for Easter. I landed at The Point around 3:30pm where I knitted my heart out and finally bound off the front piece.

This photo kinda looks like the history of the sweater itself! I used size 4 addis



and with Knit Picks Swish Superwash



I'm not sure when it was done. I do know, however, that I was at the Point until about one am chilling with Berhan, Robert and Katy, weaving in ends and all that jazz. At the end of the night, this is what I had to show for myself:



So bright and early (alright, fine, so it was closer to 2pm, so sue me!) Saturday I headed back to the point. It was time to learn how to seam up the sweater. Berhan plopped a nice and big Mocha along with a book in front of me that showed me how to seam (he might have also given me an inkling as to how to actually put the damn thing together. And showed me how to do this:


I got the shoulders and most of the sleeves done on Saturday.



See those seams!? See those seams!? You don't do you? I'm just that magical! Not bad for my first go around is it?

By the time Men's night rolled around at The Point on Sunday, I had almost finished seaming the sweater completely. I was left with this:



All that was left to do was to the neck. After I got past the initial difficulty I was having with picking up stitches for the neckline, it took me about twenty minutes to knit the 1 1/4 inch rib for the neck. I wove in the last of the ends and finished it around 12:10am on Monday morning.


No photo can really do the thing justice. You really have to see it in person. Shouldn't be that hard though. I'll be carrying it around with me wherever I go for the next few days!

Presentation is everything though. I sewed in a tag that says the sweater was hand-knit by me. I've also printed out all the blog entries (with the exception of this one so far, of course) involving the Reflection Arran Pullover. I'm going to staple or bind them or something and give them to him before I give him the sweater. There will also be a list of rules that go along with the sweater. I'll post them here in a couple of days (I'm still working on the list). Ways he can take care of it, familial obligations revolving around the sweater, etc. They're rather amusing. They'll be accompanied by a release form for him to sign. Kind of like with the afghan I gave to Beth and Erich two years ago. Except they really only had one rule and are knitters so I didn't think I'd have to spell it out for them (I hope that one rule is being followed, kids!).

So, there it is in all its glory. Finished. Seamed. Knitted. The biggest, most monumental sweater that could. Now I can go back to those socks. Now I can get onto Ann's Midnight Dot Mittens. Now I can cast on for a clapotis or a Wedgewood Blouse...the possibilities really are endless!

REFLECTION ARAN PULLOVER

Full post tomorrow.

Thursday's itinerary and finally some WIP news!!

So I figured out how I'm planning out my Thursday around the Yarn Harlot's Cast Off Book event. I'm taking Thursday off of work. Looking at the weather for Thursday onward, I realized that Saturday is supposed to be not so nice, and that I'd much rather fill in some voids of YarnHarlotness on Thursday than actually do a whole day of Yarnness (well, that and I told Claudine that we'd have special James Bond/Daniel Craig day on Saturday). Here's my plan:

6:00 am - meet at Rockefeller for the Today Show (organized by It's a Purl, Man invite is here.

~10am - head to School Products (mostly because they open before noon!) for a bit of yarn porn.

Noon - magically appear at Strawberry Fields for the infamous Sock Photo.

Whenever the sock photo gets over - head to Knitty City on 79th between Broadway and Amsterdam (west side)
Maybe the The Yarn Company after that - Disclaimer: I've never been here, but I want to see if the people are really as evil as everyone claims, and it's sorta in the neighborhood.

~ 5ish - I'm thinking it'll be about time to grab something to eat somewhere and wait in line to get into the event itself on 27th and 7th ave at FIT's Haft Auditorium.

So how does that sound?

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I've been quite busy knitting though, even if I haven't been busy with blogging about knitting. I'm sure the first thing on everyone's mind is "how's the sweater coming?"
The sweater is coming:


I've got about 18" for the front, and I need to reach 23.5" before I can start in on the neck. It is looking quite lovely though.



Mentally, I'm totally done with this sweater. Physically, obviously I have quite a bit to go even after I finish the front. My brother asked if he could have it for Easter. We'll see, but probably not. I'm working on it as much as I can without vomiting over the color (sure, it's pretty, but after seeing it sooooo much, it's really driving me close to vomiting).

Onto the next item...the Icarus Shawl. This one has been slow for me. It's my first real attempt at lace. I just started the third chart though.



Since I didn't have a sock to work on for my trip to Denver and back, I brought along my Icarus shawl. I got quite a few rows done. I think it's gotten quite a bit bigger since you've seen it last:


I caved and bought one of those Know Knits pouches to put my yarn in. It looked like the small size was perfect for socks or my Icarus. I can fit the photocopied chart, a ball of yarn and the whole shawl into that bag. It's really handy to carry around. I'm not even worried about spilling anything on my knitting while it's in my bag anymore! I'm really liking the pattern and liking the yarn Misti Alpaca lace weight even more. It's so soft and luxurious!

I guess that's all for now, I should stop doing these marathon posts! Hope to see you at the book launch day long party!!

The HUGEST Sweater That Could

OMG! TWO posts this week?! What's going on!?

Here's the most recent status of the Reflection Aran Pullover, in pictures:

You may notice the stripey colors close to the needle. This is what prompted the following...

Yup. That's me getting down and dirty with a ball winder right there, and not the fun kind, if you know what I mean...

Repositioning the stitches on the needles - note the lack of wine glass or tears! I was a very brave girl! (Total aside: iPhoto works amazingly well at getting rid of red eye! It's so much quicker than photoshop! I still haven't figured out how to get rid of red eye using photoshop.)

Here is where we currently are:

So here's what happened: EVEN THOUGH I SWEAR TO GOD I BOUGHT ENOUGH YARN, I ran out. So I bought more from Knit Picks. But the new yarn is a different dye lot (big surprise) and is visibly lighter than the original yarn. What I decided to do was rip back to the ribbing, and start stranding. So I'm knitting two rows with the new ball and two rows with the old ball. I'm hoping that this will help it look less odd, and also, I'm thinking that the stranding might lend a little more intrigue (as if this sweater needed more intrigue) to the front. It might make it look like it was hand dyed or something right? That's what I'm telling myself to get over the fact that I just ripped back a month worth of knitting. I am, however, finding that even though the chart is rediculous, that it's a bit quicker knitting the second time around, which is a total godsend, since my brother's been nagging me for the damn sweater since I got back to NY after Christmas.