Bias Striped V-Neck Shell: The Vision

This disreputable pile of yarn is (mostly) what is leftover from Hubby's Striped Turtleneck. I say "mostly" because I did not include the partial balls in the pile since they might have rolled away.

Oh, and except for the light green one, I'll get to that in a minute.

When I finished his sweater I looked at the leftover yarn and thought, "That's a lot of yarn."

So I weighed them, did some calculations, and determined that it was just about enough for a little sweater for myself. Especially if I went sleeveless. And I can conserve even more yarn by doing a V-neck. I think. Less territory to cover=less yarn needed.

This will be a yarn hoard busting sweater at its finest!

Matching. Bleh!
The first trick was that I couldn't just repeat the stripes I used in Hubby's pattern. We've been married nine years this coming July. We're beyond the matchy-matchy phase of a relationship.

Not that we were ever into it. Although my brother has a picture of us in matching yellow Brooks Brother's polo shirts, which was a total accident.

Obviously I'd have to mix up the color order.

But, even better, I could turn the stripes on their side and they they definitely wouldn't match!

This entails some intarsia action, but I knit argyles so it doesn't scare me at all.

And if I'm going to the trouble of working vertical stripes, why not have some fun and tilt them on a bias!

My brilliance is stunning.

Having finished the Schleppy Sweater, I was ready for my next challenge. For the scary math as well as knowing I probably had enough yarn.

The Schleppy Sweater took just over eight balls of Zara and weighs 401 grams.

My little pile was equal to about six balls and weighs around 380 grams.

The mitt-to-elbow portion of the Schleppy sleeves each took one ball. If I ditched the sleeves I was in business. Although I might plan short sleeves to have the numbers on hand in case I end up having enough yarn.

But, just to hedge my bets quantity-wise, I bought an extra, fresh ball to be safe, which is the light green one. Which is the one that opened the door to that buying frenzy last weekend. (We didn't have any of the existing sweater colors in stock so I couldn't just supplement one.)

Because of my concern about quantities, and the fact that I don't have equal amounts of each color, I'm going to start with the front of the sweater so if I run out of a color it will be on the back and hopefully less noticeable.

Endless Variations
The next decision was the actual stripe sequence.

I figure I can go with the Schleppy numbers for the body to the armholes and neck.

I divided the 85 stitches by my 7 colors and got around 12. This guided my first attempt (pictured in the middle of the post). I worked a knit/purl pair of rows. Then on the next knit row I shifted everything over one stitch. Purled even. Shifted, etc.

It looked pretty good.

Just to see what would happen, I then tried working four rows before shifting. You can sort of make that out in the picture. It didn't look as graphic as I expected, so I think the two row repeat is better.

Then, because I can't be satisfied, I made another swatch with six stitch wide stripes repeating each color twice. (pictured just above)

The narrower stripes also looked nice. I think it has potential. However, it's also a little busier and I think the colors will fall off one end and have to be added to the other faster, which will really mix up the look.

The wider stripe version is more in line with what I had been vaguely imagining. (We've already gone over my inability to visual spacial relations accurately.)

I didn't want to start messing with stripes of varying width or frequency. Keep it somewhat simple.

All these striping possibilities are what I was contemplating Saturday during naptime.

Tangled Mess
Since I wanted to be able to compare the swatches, didn't want to cut the yarn, and only had one ball of several color—I was working off both ends of the balls.

The yarn turned into an unholy mess. Really a massive knot. You can see the leading edge of it in the pictures.

I was well aware that would happen. And I was ready for it. Almost as soon as I started knitting the first swatch I knew I was going to rearrange the color sequence. And if I was going to rip it out anyway, why bother keeping things neat?

I'm sure I'll change my tune when I'm sitting on the couch picking it apart tonight.

Because of that, don't expect to hear about the Bias Striped V-Neck Shell for a little while.

First I have to untangle the yarn.

Second I have to decide how deep the V should be.

Third I have to do the scary math.

It's an involved business, this designing sweaters stuff.