My unofficial completion date was the day before school started. After my previous post, I realized that I was getting down to the wire; school started the 14th. The knitty powers that be were on my side, though, and I finished side two on the 11th, exactly two weeks since I started. At this distance, both sides appear to match perfectly.
With so much at stake, I actually blocked the pieces before sewing them up, and was rewarded with the illusion of wonderfully even gauge. Sewing up was tedious as expected, but I got through it, and *gasp* I had a skirt.
Had? Past tense? A collective jump, popcorn goes flying-- Yes. I had a skirt. The ribbing stretched to fit past my widest dimension, but it did not, unfortunately, stretch all the way back. I'll be the first to admit it: lack of elasticity was among the crimes leveled against alpaca by the Experienced Knitter.
I had gone this far, I had extra yarn, and I wasn't going to be beat. So I experimented, and came up with this:
A handy dandy extra piece of ribbing. I'm calling the seam (sewn with thread because sewing up with alpaca stresses me out) a Decorative Element. And it holds.
The finished product, sideways because I have forgotten the code for picture tweaking:
This picture was only taken yesterday (Forgive my knees. I know my patellae are wonky, but there's nothing I can do about it.) because I was so afraid to actually assess what I hath wrought. The skirt looked good laid out on my bed, it went on and stayed on, but what would a careful scrutiny reveal?
Even after shuffling through all my photos, viewing them a dozen times to make sure they were all named correctly, I am pleased with the way my skirt looks on. There is definitely a better side, and there's a little bimp at the side marking the Extreme Decrease row, but alpaca has a beautiful drape, and the design is pretty classic.
Emboldened by the results of my photo shoot, I decided to test drive my creation by wearing it to work. Alack. After an evening of trucking about between counters and registers, the hem did creep closer to my wonky knees while the ribbing retreated from natural waist to low rise--slightly. I would like to blame the tights I was wearing below, but I know that it was the not-so-elastic alpaca. I shall need to experiment further.
The curtain falls, the lights fade on. Not a perfect ending, but certainly not as bad as the end of The Lifeboat (If you haven't seen it, spare yourself and watch Foreign Correspondent instead).
I feel that I have proved my point, and the Experienced Knitter can still inform all and sundry that she did warn me about the elasticity.
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