FLAK Finale!

Another non-digital thing I did last week was actually knitting: I finished my FLAK!  I still cannot get over how much yarn is in cables. 23 skeins is just ridiculous. And look how huge it was before the side seams:

I had to stand on the bed to get far enough away from it to take the photo. It's actually too big to fit on my blocking board (4' square!). So you know what? I didn't block it! Craziest thing in the world: I just couldn't find a reason to do anything to it, other than sew it up. The knitted fabric is exactly how I want it. I guess all that swatching at the beginning paid off.

Heart-shaped cables, baby. Oh, yeah.

Ta-Daa! Not that this photo shows it, but it fits me perfectly. Our friend Ms. Szabo knows her way around a cabled sweater; that's for sure. Her instructions for measuring are spot-on. Writing directions for other knitters to make their sweaters actually fit is just about the hardest thing in knitting, and Janet really gets it right.

One of these days I'll grab a kid and make them photograph the sweater actually on me. Or I'll snap a shot of it on Lindsay, who keeps swiping it when I'm not looking. Not that I blame her; I wish I could describe how cuddly and soft and altogether smooshy it is.

So now I need your input, Gentle Readers. Several of you have asked me to sell the cable charts that I designed for this, which I'm only too happy to do. But I don't think I should write a traditional knitting pattern for it, since the construction and math are really Janet Szabo's and can be had so easily by purchasing her workbook. What do you think; Can I sell just the charts, or might it be confusing if somebody thought they were getting the actual pattern for my sweater? Kindly drop a comment on what you think I should do.

Acreage

I'm Back to the FLAK.  It's so very, very large! I know I've said it before, but I just never can get over how big knitting is when it's spread out flat:

And SO Much of it seems to be sleeves!  Because I normally knit circularly, I don't usually get this perspective on the drop-shoulder silhouette. I hope I'm not in trouble here. The measurements seem OK, and when I drop it over my head, it seems to match up in the right places, so I'm pressing on.  But Geez that's a lot of knitwear.  Anyway, trepidation aside, I'm pleased that the back is now complete. I originally wanted to find some way of continuing the cables down into the ribbing, but when the time came to figure out how, I flinched. I just didn't feel like thinking that hard. Instead, I opted to make my very first twisted rib.  Can you believe it? Knitting my whole life, and never tried a twisted rib before!

I'm pleased with it. The neckline seemed disturbingly huge, so I went ahead and finished it to calm myself down.  I like it; subtle, but just a little different, and it has great body and snap. This is ribbing that will not forget how to do its job.

How's your FLAK going? Or should I say "growing"?

Hypotenuse

My FLAK is big.  Really big.  It measures correctly, but spread out flat like this, it seems less like a sweater and more like a motorcycle cozy.  Which would explain the prodigious rate at which it's gobbling up yarn. Granted, these skeins are pretty short, but I've done so many spit-splices I'm starting to dehydrate. I'm about halfway down sleeve #2, and nearing the end of the 12th skein.  And speaking of sleeves, notice anything special about these?

How about now?  That's right!  Reverse-Hypotenuse sleeve decreases! Which, for the non-mathy (such as me), means that the decreases happen on top of the arm, rather than at the underarm.  The legendary Joan Schrouder cleverly pioneered this architecture.  It results in less fabric under the armpits, so bunching up is greatly reduced.  And look at what a pretty curve happens at the shoulder, right where you want it.  I think it's dead sexy.  Thanks, Joan!  

Groovy thing about top-down sweater knitting: Not sure what kind of edge treatment you want for neckline, cuffs and hem? No problem! Just put the stitches on holders and figure it out at the end.  Who knows? Maybe I'll even devise some fancy way of continuing the cables down into the ribbing, ala Kathy Zimmerman. 

But first I have to get ready to join skein # 13.  I need a drink of water.