Nip Tuck: 21

One freezing day earlier this winter, I came home from work to find a parcel from my brother. I knew what was in it and seeing that the house had not yet quite warmed up to an acceptable temperature, I ripped it open and donned the contents:
















This is Pattern no. 21 from the Istex Lopi  Book No. 21. I knit it several years ago for my brother James at the behest of our sisters. Now James is rather tall, big even, you might say, but he's not this big. The sweater is 48 inches around at the chest and measures 29 inches from the neck to the hem. The yoke ends around  a normal person's waistline. Yes, at the encouragement of persons who shall remain nameless, I had knit the XXL size of this man's Lopi sweater.  Maybe it would have fit Eric the Red or Leif the Lucky or some other Viking, but it did not fit my brother. 

James cared for it for several years with nary a peep until one day last summer when I asked him how it was faring. He politely admitted that it didn't fit him. After much um-ing and er-ing and passage of time, as well as many promises of another sweater, it finally turned up in the mail. Come to think of it, the promises of another sweater may have slowed things down. Note to self.

Now, I decided that all was not lost and that with some adjustments it could make a decent jacket for a woman, a jacket with dolman sleeves that is. Oh look. The dolman sleeve was a fall trend. Last year. 

Yes! And into the sewing machine it went:




















Then out came the scissors and off came the cuffs:
















You can read about cutting up your knitting and put it back together all over the place in books and on the web, but here's a photo of the operation in progress. I carefully caught one loop of each stitch on a spare piece of yarn at the level I wanted to cut and then I cut one row below it:
















Then I transferred the stitches onto dpn's and knit the new cuff:
















Somewhere in the middle of all these activities, I picked up and knit the button bands on top of two lines of single crochet. Here's where things stand now: 
















Will this be another horrible waste of time and material? Stay tuned.

In Nature
We are expecting Winter back tomorrow along with 1 to 2 inches of snow.  Though Spring is slow to come, today was gorgeous. Here's the garden:















And here is a pic of my neighbour's rather spectular Lenten Roses, one of the few things blooming. Click to embiggen:




Comments

Xxx. Xxxx said…
Lenten roses! I've never heard that name for these before. How lovely!
April 5, 2009 at 7:04 PM
Mary Lou said…
I have not been able to get those danged hellebores to bloom. Those are lovely. And I look forward to the post surgery photos.
April 6, 2009 at 4:38 PM
Harpa Jónsdóttir said…
Looking very good so far!
April 6, 2009 at 8:02 PM
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