The Movable Finish Line

Oh yeah, now I remember why I hesitate to finish my projects. It's usually a cocktail of the following emotions and experiences:

1. Obstacles not factored into the finishing equation.
2. Proportionally less experience in finishing objects (I have my black belt in starting them).
3. Testing various finishing methods to see which produces the best result (usually not the one suggested in the pattern).

I boldly picked up my pieces to Ava on Saturday only to find that I'd not yet woven in all the intarsia ends on the back. Oy!!!! After getting that out of the way, I set about to joining front and back at shoulders. The pattern recommends a back stitch. Now, I've tended to use 3 needle bind offs but this shoulder is shaped so, I elected to try the back stitch. First attempt looked horrible! Geeze, I even researched it in my handy/dandy Montse Stanley Knitter's Handbook. My second attempt was utilizing a crochet bind off. Still not as smooth as I would like but mattress stitch just won't give the stability needed here so, I'll go with this. As Lucy Neatby would say, "If they can't see anything wrong from the back of a galloping horse... don't worry about it." Ya gotta think a lady with great hair like this knows a thing or two about damning the torpedoes. So, now that the shoulders are taken care of, the next step will be the button bands.

I did prep the first side by measuring off the length into manageable quarters. The band only requires two rows of garter stitch. I can deal with that and hopefully, it fits nicely with no rippling.

I've really enjoyed working with the Rowan Wool and Cotton. In fact, last April I treated myself to this lovely design in the same yarn from Kim Hargreaves.

It's called Sal.

I got the colour shown here, it's called Grand and is a fab rich purple. It comes with the white shell buttons too and is wrapped beautifully.

In the meantime, I'll keep the focus on Ava. After all, I need to brush up on those rarely used finishing skills!