Finished object: Mermaid!

I've finished off my Mermaid!

I'm going to wear it out tomorrow to meet imaginary people from the internet; if they don't make fun of me, I'll consider it a sucess. My gauge issues are largely masked by the application of icord as edging; normal sweater construction compensates for loosening/tightening gauge throughout a project far better than Mermaid. It's still a lovely sweater, and I'm very excited to have finished it, not least because my partner claimed that I obviously didn't need any knitting things for the holidays, as I hadn't finished last year's present.

For those with high curviness coefficients, note that Mermaid suggests curviness better than it accomodates it. If I knit it again (after I have enough sweaters to keep me warm through the cold, cold Boston winter), I'll take out part of each stripey section and add gussets like the blue ones, but facing up instead of down. (See how excited I was? I didn't even bother changing my ... lovely pants.)

The construction details on this sweater make seaming a snap. Slipped sitches make a two-stitch section of stockinette to be seamed at the shoulders. The narrower band of stockinette is where I seamed the (garter stitch) collar section to the stockinette at the top of the back.

The collar is knit as part of the body, then seamed in the middle and stitched down to the back. This does result in a rather prominent seam down the back of the collar, though it's nicer because of the (single-stitch) stockinette seaming area. It would be more obvious if I had used the icord instructions Hanne Falkenberg specified; instead of making the icord in two pieces (one for each side of the sweater), I did it all at once to eliminate the seam.

Because of all the slipped stitches and colour changes, the insides of the seams don't look as pretty. I'm hoping that a bit of steam will make them nicer. Since the yarn is so fine, bulkiness is not an issue here, just fastidiousness.

The shoulder is easy as well, because the sleeve incorporate the slipped-stitch seaming area. (You can just see the edge of it in the seam in the form of vertical pieces of yarn.) The armscye is rather flat, which is good for seaming, but probably could have been slightly better for fit. In virtually every picture I've seen of someone in a Mermaid, the shoulders are a bit large and droopy, which could be fixed by cutting the armsceye slightly deeper. If I knit this again, I'll incorporate that change.

Even the sleeves are finished off nicely with icord!

Kitty says: get on to the next sweater, or the yarn gets it!

I'll add here a blatant plea. If anyone is reading this, please let me know. I'm not sure if I should continue putting up pictures if people don't care.