The Family Trunk Project Blog

Back on track

With Secret Knitting done and Ms. Walkaway on the hanger, I'm recharged and making progress on the Warren Johnson jacket. (What, a garment that's actually relevant to the Family Trunk Project? You don't say!)

These are some quick snaps of the completed left jacket front, pre-felting. This project is a little bit frustrating because felting, even the kind of light felting I'm doing, is a big commitment, and something I don't want to do until I'm sure each finished piece has the proper dimensions. So I'm waiting to felt this and seam it to the back, until after I see my dad on Sunday and get a chance to fuss over the fit. Hopefully, everything will go well. Meanwhile I'm about ready to cast on for an arm. Once I have a front, arm and back all joined together, I will feel very confident about the final success of the jacket as a whole.

Previous to my little sewing-and-secret-knitting break, I struggled mightily with the treatment of the front placket and buttonhole area. First I couldn't get the transition from two-stranded grey waistband to two-color placket to look smooth, and ripped out numerous times before finally coming up with a method that works (pretending it's intarsia and twisting BOTH strands of each section around both strands of the other). The real pickle, though, was how to do the buttonholes. Due to the felting and the unorthodox colorwork, most traditional treatments wouldn't work: picking up stitches for a buttonhole band once the jacket is seamed, for example, or even knitting the band separately and seaming it on last. I didn't want a single-color band disrupting the plaid on the jacket front, and I couldn't get any kind of non-curling textured stitch to look remotely decent with the colorwork pattern. Finally, I decided to work the buttonholes in one piece with the jacket front, trimming the front with some single crochet in dark grey to control the curling. Once it's felted I think that should be enough; the felted fabric of the back has much less curl than it did prior to felting. Cross your fingers! I would really prefer to have found the solution to this little quandary, and move on.

The good news, though, is that this knitting just FLIES in comparison with my stealth knitting project. Once I ensure good fit, the right front and sleeves should be dropping off my needles in no time at all.