Thursday, October 28, 2021

Roseroot

At last, my Roseroot by Lene Tosti. This poor top has been in the works since August of 2020! It was a rocky start, due to my yarn substitution choice (I have yet to make a single project in the exact yarn the pattern calls for... *cough*). It doesn't help that I'm lazy about swatching. Ironically, I abandoned this project right after I had finally worked out the kinks. It sat untouched for months, until I finally picked it up again. All I had left was thousand upon thousands of "knit, knit, knit" stitches, with a few decreases/increases thrown in and a little bit of lace work at the hem.



The yarn I used was Bremont Valentina, a gorgeous 60/40 alpaca-merino blend in one of my favorite coral hues. I am starting to question my preference for fingering weight yarn -- I think it's been largely driven by cost (yarn is ultimately sold by weight, and you get many more yards of fingering than you do bulkier yarns). But goodness, it makes for slow knitting! Each row can be several hundred stitches, yet you only get an 1/8 of an inch of progress for each row. I'm craving the quick(er) progress of a nice, bulky yarn. Then again, I made this top for a song -- during a crazy clearance sale I paid $1.82 per skein, instead of the $13 the yarn would normally retail for. And I only used a few yards of the fourth skein, so the sweater cost less than $6. The materials cost is hard to beat...let's just not talk about the hours (and hours...and hours!) that went into construction. But I knit because I love it, so we'll waive the labor "cost."



Apart from some tedium and impatience on my end, the rest of the knitting did go smoothly. I have no idea what size I even ended up knitting, because I think it changed several times during the project (again, yarn weight issues!). I even changed needle sizes at one point! But remarkably, it ended up fitting nicely and didn't need any further adjustments. A definite blessing after so much headache at the beginning. 

Is it odd that one of my biggest frustrations was running out of my third skein of yarn on my cast-off round?! Literally just a few yards short -- if I had made the sweater one row shorter, I would have had enough. Instead, I had to join new yarn from my final skein (I shouldn't complain, at least I had plenty for the project!). I really think what made me grumpy was having more ends to weave in; I'm always so ready to just be done when I cast off. But watching this sweater "bloom" was such a treat -- blocking produced a magical transformation, not only for the lace (which always needs blocking to look right) but also for a few wonky patches where I'd changed needles, etc. 



And, once again, I have completed a project just after the appropriate season -- which means this top will probably be tucked away until spring, because the temperature hasn't budged above 65 for several weeks. It seems no matter how well I plan, I still manage to finish my projects at the "wrong" time! I'll just have to console myself with pulling out my Grey Havens sweater, which has been waiting since July...

4 comments:

  1. Don't be grumpy about the season. It is LOVELY! You might still wear it with a skirt and shawl on a not to cool evening. The color is so seasonal!

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    1. Erica,

      Thank you for your kind words! Haha, I'll try not to be too grumpy! ;-) I haven't even put it away yet, because just seeing it makes me happy. We have had a few warmer days, so who knows...

      Cheers,
      Shannon

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    2. I hope this reaches you. I just started the Roseroot and I am already stuck with no answer on ravelry. On row 4 of lace it moves The marker to before that last purl stitch yet the first stitch in the next row is a K2tog. How can that be and it not be a purl stitch if it’s the new row starter stitch? Please advise as you figured it out before. Thank you

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    3. Okay, so I just knit up a little sample swatch to make sure I had this figured out! It's been a few years!

      I can understand your confusion, I nearly missed what you were talking about. Here's what to do: knit all but the last of the row 4 repeats as written, with two purl stitches at the end of each repeat. On the very last repeat, only do the first of the two purl stitches. Place the new round marker after the first purl stitch, and treat the last stitch of row 4 like the first stich of row 5. In other words, you never purl that last stitch, you immediately start row 5 with a k2tog (you're knitting together the last stitch of row 4 with the first k2tog from row 4). This is only for the last repeat of row 4! After that, it should be smooth sailing.

      I hope this helps, and let me know if you have any more questions! You can always e-mail me at thoughtsandthimbles@gmail.com!

      Blessings,
      Shannon

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