Happy Birthday to me!

Pattern: Hey, Teach! by Hélène Rush
Source: Knitty.com
Yarn: Cotton Ease by Lion Brand in Almond
Needles: US 9

Sunday afternoon, I decided I wanted to finish Hey, Teach! so I could wear it tonight to my birthday dinner. So, I cast on for the left front panel, finished it Sunday night, cast on and started the right front panel that night, finished it and the sleeves the next day! Yesterday, I knit up the neckline and button bands and sewed up the whole thing. I fell into my bed finally at 3.30 this morning. *falls over* But it's finished! And just as I was about to sit down to sew on the buttons, mom took pity on me (I'm the birthday girl!) and beat me to it. All I had to do was steam blocke and model. *g* I think I may finally turn into a gauge touter because my gauge was so spot on, I didn't need to block any of the pieces to stretch them to their proper size! I'm quite proud of that. Ooh, and check out the fantab buttons I got!



All in all, I love this cardy, and I am very happy with this yarn. I think if I had it to knit again, I'd try a DK weight yarn in a larger size to dress the sweater up a bit more. As it is, I may do just that at some point as I'm always looking for elegant, classy looking sweaters. And this pattern is definitely that.

WIPs

I spent the weekend working on the back panel of Hey, Teach! after fixing my SIL's Little Lace Shrug (from Pam Allen's Little Silk Shrug pattern). This was actually helpful in that both use cotton yarns. I added a bit of length to the shrug which allowed me to incorporate the decreases in the edging that the pattern calls for, but I can't say I'm particularly pleased with it. I should've used a stretchier bind off and perhaps omitted the final decreases in the bind off row itself. The opening is tighter than I'd like, and I have a narrower back than SIL does. I think I'll talk to her and see if she can bring it by again this weekend so I can fix that row.

I've learned quite a bit about the inelasticity and drape of cotton with these two pojects which is quite useful. I seem to need to see these things in practice rather than read about it in a book or magazine. I swatched for Hey, Teach and got gauge on size 9/5.5mm. In the stockinette this looks fine, but the knit stitches open on the 1x1 rib, which is slightly annoying (you can see this in the pic if you click on it--it'll give you the larger size). I'm hoping a bit of blocking will help this, but perhaps going with a size 8/5mm needle and working a larger pattern size would've helped with this? I'm not sure. The same thing happened with the cotton blend yarn I used on the Columbine Peaks socks, again in the rib portion. Has this happened to anyone else?