Monday, July 13, 2009

Herz Broken

Do you remember the third Star Trek movie? It was the one between Star Trek II, where Kirk yells the immortal "Khaaaaaaaaan!" and the fourth one where they go back in time to San Francisco to save the whales. I thought so -- hardly anyone remembers it. One of the plot points involves getting Spock's soul out of Dr. McCoy and re-implanting it in Spock's body during a very rare and dangerous Vulcan ritual. The point of all this is the outfit Spock wears during this process. You see, I just made a cabled version of it.

Get a load of those shoulders. Yep -- I made that. I read some time ago that when looking at the modeled shots of knitted objects, one should pay special attention to the parts of the garment you can't see in the photos. In the photos for the Herz & Baum Vest in Guy Knits, the model is always wearing a jacket over the vest. You cannot see what the armholes look like. That's because, unless you're a linebacker, these armholes are going to stick out. I mean really stick out. Ridiculously far.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I think I may just chalk this up to experience -- knit and learn. I put a LOT of work into this, but I'm not going to wear it if I'm going to look like a clown -- or a Vulcan going through fal-tor-pan. If anyone has any ideas -- besides donating this to Home for the Criminally Broad-Shouldered, please let me know.

To help get my mind off this colossal disappointment, I buckled down and finished the Sailor's Rib Socks that I made out of Malabrigo. Beautiful color, perfect match of yarn pattern to stitch pattern, and they fit wonderfully. So there.

Plus, I've got in mind another pair of socks that I want to knit for an upcoming special milestone. I'll share some of it, but I think I'll keep some of it back as a surprise. We'll see...

10 comments:

  1. Oh no!! I'm sorry you don't like the armholes. I'm sure they don't look that bad; maybe you can just wear a jacket over it like they do in the pattern book. ;)

    And has Jene seen those socks?!

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  2. I guess those armholes aren't really fixable without an insane amount of ripping back. Maybe you really do need to wear a spiffy jacket with it. Or - just wait until shoulder pads come back into style and pop some babies in there.

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  3. Maybe you have a career in handknit items for the NFL crowd. I still wanna see the modeled shot. What if you ran some elastic around the armholes? Would that pull them down some, or just make it puff in a different way?

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  4. I agree with the "wear a jacket" advice -- probably not sensible in mid-July Texas, but there'll be a day or two in January when it would work. It would give you a professorial air!

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  5. You're comfortable with steeking now...cut it as you like! Rip back the armhole ribbing and go. Since you'd be cutting in an area where you didn't knit a special steek, you could add a line of machine stitches to make sure everything is secure.

    OR - you could add sleeves. Then it would make it a dropped-shoulder sweater. Come to think of it, I've never seen a pattern for a steeked vest. Now I see why.

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  6. Oh - I just thought of something else. If this was a woman's vest, you could try running a thread through the shoulder seams and tightening it up, to create a sort of smocking effect. Probably not the look you're going for. I bring it up for brainstorming reasons. :)

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  7. Live long and prosper, mon frere.

    Uncle C

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  8. PLEASE give us a photo of you in this so that we can be the judge of the armhole situation. Other than steeking, could you do any stitching that would just kind of put it in it's place?

    -Jene

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  9. Heather Outside BostonJul 16, 2009, 12:49:00 PM

    I have that same beach towel.

    You could try re-blocking the shoulder seams with all the purl stitches tucked in/behind and puckered up, then stitch a tight crochet chain through the inside of the seam to keep it from sagging.

    On Ravelry, I'm HeatherOutsideBOS, and you can see the cabled sweater I did for Husbeast...

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  10. Oh no! I'm so sorry that it turned out like that (but I did like the third star trek movie!). I hope you can fix it - its a gorgeous project - but if not, I'm going with the wear a jacket.

    Gorgeous socks!

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