Thursday, January 18, 2007

Rare Breed Sweater - Left Front Finished

After three major unknit/reknit sessions, I finally finished the left front to my Rare Breed Sweater last night. I frogged and reknit the bottom row of sheep once, and the top 4 inches twice. Once because I counted wrong for the neck decreases, and once because I discovered that my seeding pattern was off by one stitch.

So here it is, with help.........

Catzee, who never wants to miss out on whatever I'm doing.and with help removed..........

Rare Breed Sweater, left front.The top row is (from left to right): Leicester Longwool, California Variegated Mutant, and Whiteface Woodland.

The bottom row is a family of Navajo-Churro sheep, showing off a nice variety of their lovely natual colors. The spacing between the adult on the right and the lamb looks better than it did at first. Even though it was the same measurement of 4 stitches as between the other sheep, the smaller lamb created a larger visual space.

And here it is, pinned to the back. It gives an idea of how the sheep motif is fitting together on the two pieces.

Front and back of sweater pinned together.
I still need to weave in a lot of ends and embroider the details: eyes, facial outlines, and a tail for that one seam-side sheep on the bottom. It is working out better than I'd hoped. I've had to do a lot of thinking and calculating to get the sheep to work out right. For awhile I wasn't too sure that would happen, but it is.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

How beautiful. Leigh that is a real work of art. I love it!!!!! can't wait to see it finished.

Sue said...

Looking GREAT!!!

Tina T-P said...

Leigh - that is ABSOLUTELY adorable- I can't wait to see it finished either! (I can't wait to see the little Shetland sheep that you come up with :-) Ha, Ha) Just adorable! T.

Anonymous said...

It looks awesome!

Anonymous said...

Actually, I like the 3 dimensional tortoise-shell-sheep-impersonator in the first pic! Then I must say that the Jacobs is a close second!! Well done, Leigh...

Holly said...

It looks so great and each one is known by you. Really nice.

Tina T-P said...

Leigh - Hope you don't mind - I posted a link to your sweater on our Shetland Sheep list - I thought everyone would want to see it :-)

Charleen said...

Leigh, your sweater is so beautiful. The sheep are so cute and I love the stitch pattern. What a great way to wrap up the workshop.

Tina T-P said...

Me again - several people have already written on our list how wonderful they think your sweater is! (I told them that you were saving the best (shetland) for last) LOL T.

Cathy said...

I just love it - what a masterpiece it will be! The idea alone was fantastic, but it's working up to be really beautiful!

Renee Nefe said...

I loved the first picture as well...would that be the "head jumper" that Rascal loves so much? ;)
seeing her sitting there reminds me of most of my furry kids...they see fabric on the floor and assume its a new bed for them.
This year for Christmas I made Lilly a new bed out of a towel & some fiber fill...just folded the towel and stiched it shut after stuffing it with a bag of fill...she loves it and won't share with anyone.

Oh and your sweater is very cute! Will it be like a vest or will there be sleeves too?

Jackie said...

WOW! You rock!

vlb5757 said...

The sweater is lovely with or without help! Such a beautiful sweater.

Anonymous said...

I have a 'helper' who looks JUST like your helper, except chubbier. Her name is Fuggy and she's the very sweetest kitty ever. I had to smile at your pic because I think all kitties try to help as much as they can.