22 May 2014

The Pesky Poncho, part 3

And so, back for another instalment of the Poncho Saga! 

In the previous related post, I left you with an unbearable cliffhanger... After hours and hours of feverishly trying to finish the back section, I finally realised that the two shoulder sections were not symmetrical. The photo below shows it, well that is if you know what you're looking for. Basically, the orange treillis on the right hand side of the neck opening has fewer rows than the beige one on the left hand side.


There was no way, absolutely no way, that I would be willing to undo the whole back section. If I did do it, I was pretty certain I would never touch the thing again. On top of that, the frogging might damage the yarn, and I had little to spare. So I thought I would try to do a little bit of what I consider haute voltige, that is, to undo just the problematic section and to redo it the correct way. A while before, I had come across a very interesting tutorial to repair a torn granny square, here. So I thought I would give it a go on the Poncho.

Before I did it on the main thing, though, I luckily remembered the swatch I'd crocheted when I'd first set out on the long Poncho journey.


After much pondering, I finally cut through one of the rows of treillis and pulled a string of black yarn through the stitches that had now become loose.


I then proceeded to redo the row of treillis. It didn't go too badly... 



...but the process was extremely fiddly, especially as the unravelled yarn kept tangling up, and the more I progressed, the more I dreaded what it would be like on the much larger scale Poncho.

Around the same time, a friend of mine came to visit me, and I showed her the Poncho, of which I had by then finished the main body, which meant there were only the fringes to attach - and of course the shoulder to redo. I showed the work to my friend, who said she was incapable of spotting where the mistake was, and her input helped me make up my mind once and for all. I would not risk ruining the whole garment to try and correct a mistake that was hardly visible, if at all. I might add a couple of rows around the neck to secure the opening, but nothing more.

And with that decision made, I was now free to proceed with the fringes. I have to say, the task of attaching the fringes had always seemed daunting to me ever since I had started the project. It did not help that the pattern said to "cut 960 strands of yarn of 30 cm". 960!!! That's almost 1,000!!! How on earth do you go about a business like that? The good news is, though, that they have to be attached in bunches of 8, so that makes it 120 groups of 8, 60 for each panel. So I came with a quick and easy way to cut the fringes. Wrap the yarn eight times around a magazine (roughly 30 cm long). It's best to wrap it loosely, otherwise the yarn gets stretched and the fringe ends up being shorter than it should. 


Then, cut at top and bottom, and attach with a slipknot at the bottom of one of the panels.


Because the yarn is variegated, I had to do a little bit of thinking as to where the fringes should go. I didn't want the gradual colour change to go uninterrupted around the whole garment, as I felt it might look unbalanced, so I spaced the first groups of fringes evenly and then filled the gaps as I went.

So far, I have done half of it all, and I have to say, it worked up much quicker than I expected. A very pleasant surprise.


I haven't been able to carry on with the rest, as I was unwell after that, but the return of the sunshine will be a great incentive to start again. I really want to be able to wear the Poncho this summer.

See you next time, hopefully for the big reveal :)


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