Anti-Wrinkle Knitting

They say too much sun gives you wrinkles. I, however, am increasingly of the opinion that too much rain can also give you wrinkles. Impossible! I hear you cry, unthinkable! Well, let me ask you this: is it possible to walk out in the rain without scrunching up your face to the point where you look like you’ve been pickling away nicely in a jar somewhere for the last decade? It can’t be done. Look for yourself the next time. Given this eternal summer rain monsoon of misery, you’d think anti-aging rain creams would be filling shelves all over the world! Just think of the marketing opportunites in the west of Ireland alone!

There’s not much one can do whilst waiting for such a necessary product to be created – or for the sun creams to be relabelled – except nurse one’s Rain Wrinkles… or knit something that will, if not cover them up, at least flatter them.

Lace Leaf T-shirt
Lace distracts from Rain Wrinkles

(I think if I’m enduring rain to get these wrinkles, I may as well give them capital letters). Don’t the sleeves make much more sense when you see them like that? I really like the lace detail down the raglan seam.

Raglan Lace Leaf T-shirt

Upon the advice of Lisa, I decided to put in a phoney seam on either side of the body, underneath the arms, for stability. I say phoney seam because I am working in the round. To the best of my knowledge, there are two ways to do this. You can knit the body, then drop the stitch you want as the seam edge all the way to the bottom (if you’ve been working bottom-up) or to the armhole (for top-down). Then you take a crochet hook and pick up every second or third stitch. If that sounds too messy to you (it does to me), you can just slip the seam stitch every second round when you’re working in the round. It has pretty much the same effect.

Seam Lace Leaf T-shirt

I wouldn’t have thought it necessary, but Lisa knitted her’s before mine, also out of Debbie Bliss Cathay. She said that because of the glossy nature of the yarn, it tended to twist around a bit when it was being worn. I would find that really irritating, so I figured I should err on the side of caution (always good to err isn’t it? Except when it leads to error…Have you erred today? I hear it’s good for Rain Wrinkles).

5 thoughts on “Anti-Wrinkle Knitting

  1. Hi there 🙂

    Your lace leaf tee is looking gorgeous – that colour is simply stunning!

    Just to say I think it is actually a (teeny tiny) disadvantage of top down knitting that, without the stability of a seam, the work tends to twist around on itself. But I love top down knitting and this would definitely not put me off it! I don’t think a phoney seam would always be necessary but, because this t-shirt has a lace panel going straight down the centre, the twist is slightly more obvious as the panel sometimes moves off-centre. Not necessarily a feature of the yarn itself I don’t think but a (warning: bad pun ahead) “side effect” of the method. Let me know how the phoney seam goes…

    Meandering, rambling point now over!

    Lisa

  2. Thanks for the tips guys. I’ve read on blogs that sometimes knitting in the round can change the behaviour of the garment. I guess this is what it means.

    And the Lace Leaf Tee is simply gorgeous. Makes me wanna rush out RIGHT NOW and get some of that silky loveliness for myself!

    Looking forward to a modelled shot. You’re gonna hafta model a Summer Sweater Sprint gallery at the end of the summer you know!

    (Warning: Pun ahead)

    I didn’t err today (yet) but I have ‘erred’ that it’s good for Wrinkles of All Sorts.

    cheerio

    Nic

  3. I didn’t find rain wrinkles on me yet – but I do think that there might be some rust stains coming up very soon:(( didn’t do any knitting today – because I try to get over all that liquid sunshine by spinning some gorgous silk/wool mixture! just wait until I have that finished….!! one good thing about it though: no bad conscience about not doing the gardening:)

  4. Beautiful work! I love the colour choice. The pattern works well with it. I was wondering about your opinion on the Panda Cotton. I knit a pair on size US1’s and they were so tight. Did it split a lot when you knit with it? Thanks! Still love your work. =)

  5. I never noticed, but yes – we do all wrinkle up our faces in the rain. If we don’t, then rain gets in our eyes and all we can do is look through half-lids, which makes us all look like Kirsten Dunst, now, doesn’t it?

    The tee is coming along nicely, and it matches your blog colors. The fake seam is an excellent idea, and I think I remember EZ mentioning something about fake seams, too.

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