My Wrapigan is done!!

Here is my finished Wrapigan!!

Details:

Pattern: The Wrapigan by Champagne Maker

Needles: size US 7

Yarn: Joseph Galler Prime Alpaca (3 skeins) in color 'Musk'

Started: January 6, 2009
Finished: February 6, 2009

I made several modifications to the pattern, the major one being the cable down the sleeve. I didn't like the twist cable, so I revamped it to be a braided cable. I'll give detailed notes on that in a second. Some other modifications were to shorten the fringe, eliminate the sleeve tabs, make the cuff ribbing longer, and use waste yarn to work the armholes. I'll go over each modification in detail.

First, the waste yarn method of working the armholes. Instead of binding off the stitches and then casting on stitches in the next row, to create the armhole, I knit the armhole stitches onto a piece of waste yarn. I *thought* this was a good idea at the time, but it *wasn't*. The resulting fabric in this pattern is a very loose and drapey fabric. Because of that, the armhole really needs the support from bound off stitches in order to not stretch too much. So I would very much recommend following the pattern on that one.

Here's what I did to fix the problem. I wound up with way too much stretch at the armhole as seen here:

What I did was to crochet 2 reinforcement rows along the armhole seam on the inside of the garment. Here is a link to a Yarn Harlot blog post about the method. This is what it ended up looking like on the inside and the outside:

Quite a difference, huh? I really wish I hadn't had to do it in the first place though, but oh well.

For the fringe, I did 8 strands of 12 inches for each tassel instead of the pattern instructions (I can't remember the exact pattern instructions, but it was something like 10 strands of 20 inches or something like that.)

The braided cable in place of the twisted cable took a little tweaking. Here's what I did:

Braided Cable: worked over 18 sts.

Cable cross 1: slip 6 sts onto cable needle, hold to front,
work 6 sts, then the 6 sts off cable needle, work last 6 sts.

Cable cross 2: knit 6 sts, put next 6 sts on cable needle
and hold to back, work 6 sts, then work 6 sts off cable needle.

Starting on Row 13 of pattern: Sl1pw, K15, pm, C18, pm,K14, pu & knit 2.
(50sts)

Following pattern for sleeve shaping, alternate between cable cross 1
and cable cross 2 on rows 13,21,29,37,4,12,20,28,36,44,52,60,68,76,84,92,100 -
keeping all other shaping in pattern the same.

And here's what the sleeve looks like close up:

Then I eliminated the sleeve tabs and decreased for the cuff by working the following rows:
My last cable twist was on Row 100 of sleeve. I knit plain to row 104, then on Row 105 I did as follows: Knit to marker, (Sl1, K2tog, psso) 6x, knit to end. I then knit plain rows for 3 more rows (106-108). I proceeded with the K1,P1 rib for the cuff - over 72 sts instead of the 66. (Eliminating the Bow on the cuff.) I knitted a total of 20 rows of K1, P1.

That's it! It took me a month of mostly dedicated knitting (with a couple of breaks here and there to break up the tedium!). I'm very pleased with the finished product - now I just need to figure out how best to wear it!!