Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Official Rinoa Heartilly's Duster Pattern

 
Rinoa Heartilly's Duster and Armwarmers



















 
Supplies:

Size 2 (2.75 mm) knitting needles (I strongly recommend 14” length for at least the back panel)
Size 2 (2.75 mm) double pointed needles
yarn needle
white fabric paint
two small silver buttons (The ones I used were 1/2” across)

Yarn
I used Knitpicks.com Shine Sport in Sky, 60% Pima Cotton, 40% Modal® natural beech wood fiber. Anything would be fine as long as it's sport weight. For my length I used 20 skeins of yarn. Online is definitely the cheapest way to go when buying that much yarn. Knitpicks.com is an excellent source, and so is elann.com. Because of the ribbed fabric, I might recommend you use a wool yarn so you can block it flat and have it stay, but I really liked the look of the cotton yarn.

This jacket is a size medium tall, made to fit my medium sized 6' tall frame.


Gauge: 10 rows to an inch, 6 sts to an inch.

Abbreviations:
CO- cast on                   pfb- purl front and back
k- knit                            kfb- knit front and back
p- purl                            sts- stitches


The Armwarmers




CO 60 sts onto three double pointed needles.
Join, knit 2, purl 2 all the way around.
Continue until desired length. 
They took about one skein each. 
Cast off using whatever stretchy bind off you're most comfortable with. I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off. (Site with description of bind off technique: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall09/FEATjssbo.php)

Mine were 11 1/4” long. It is not necessary to taper the tube to fit your arm, the ribbed pattern will keep them snug.







The Duster  

The Front Panel (Make 2)

CO 16 sts on to straight needles
knit 2, Purl 2 for 6”

start increasing here. (if you have a preferred increasing technique, feel free to use it. This is just the one I used.)

K2, p2 until the last two sts, pfb the last two stitches.
K2, p2 back across
k2, p2 until the last two stitches, kfb the last two.
P2, k2 back across.

Continue until you've increased to 44 sts. Remember to always increase on the same side. Make sure you're paying attention to whether you're starting with a knit or a purl on the next row after increasing.


At 44 sts your piece should be about 10” long.

Continue knitting without increases until piece reaches from shoulder to ankle. This was 56 ½” total for me. It took about three skeins of yarn.
( I am TALL. Although once it was done I wished it was a bit longer. Make sure you adjust this for yourself.)
I did not bind off any pieces until I had all 3 seamed together so I could make sure they were all the same length, since I didn't count rows.
The Back Panel (Make One)

This is a wide piece, I strongly recommend having 14” long needles for this.

CO 16 sts each from two different balls of yarn. to start with it's gonna be two separate pieces, doing it like this makes sure they're the same length. (Pictures are done with different colored yarn to illustrate what I was doing.)

k2, p2 across both pieces each with their own yarn, for about three inches. so you'll have two completely independent pieces just hanging off the same needle.

 
kfb/pfb depending on what's needed on the last two sts of the first piece on the needle and the first two sts of the second piece. so towards the inside, increasing the pieces towards each other. keep doing this every row until the pieces together measure about 11"-12" across together. that's about the comfortable length to go across my shoulders. I increased each piece to 42 sts.


to join the pieces, do one more row of increases, except after knitting across the first piece, instead of using the working yarn from the second piece to knit it, carry the yarn over from the first piece. pull it tight so there's no gap.
k2, p2 one row after the join to solidify it. piece was 4 1/2" long, about 11" across.

Now, you increase the outsides to go down across your back and under you arms. Increases must be finished when the piece is 10” long to match up with the front panels.

Plain row means k2 p2 across without any increases
increase means kfb/pfb the first and last stitch of that row.

plain row
plain row
increase
plain
plain
increase
plain
plain
increase piece was 5 1/2" long.
plain <---- one inch

plain
plain
increase
plain
plain
plain
increase
plain
plain
plain
plain <--- two inches (eleventh row is extra to make up the length) 6 7/8" long

increase
plain
plain
plain
increase
plain
plain
plain
increase
plain
plain <--- three inches, just shy of 8" long

plain
plain
increase
plain
plain
plain
increase
plain
plain
plain <--- four inches. no need for an extra row. 9 1/8" long

increase 1 st on each side (to make sure we have a complete bar of ribbing)
plain
increase 2 sts on each side
plain
increase 2
plain
increase 2
plain
increase 2 <--- 10" long and 128 sts across.

I realize the increases are unevenly split on the rows, feel free to change this if it bothers you, as long as you have the same number of increases. Do not change the last inch of increases, it is important for the shape to have more increases in the last inch. This is what worked for me.

Again, make sure you're paying attention to whether you're starting with a knit or a purl on the next row after increasing. Since you're only increasing one stitch on each side for the first few inches it's going to be a little strange. Pay attention.

After the final increase row, continue to knit without increases until piece is desired length.  This took about 9 skeins of yarn.



Once pieces are done, seam together using the mattress stitch. I was very careful to pick places for the seams so as to not interrupt the ribbed pattern. This will be awkward if you didn't bind off to make sure that all three pieces lined up. Once you're sure, bind off using the same stretchy bind off you used for the armwarmers. Wash and block.

BLOCKING STRONGLY RECOMMENDED. The nature of ribbed fabric is to pull in, so these pieces will look small. Blocking will set the stitches and stretch out the ribbing so it looks nice. Blocking also provides a perfect opportunity to paint the wings on the back of the jacket.

The Wings

A few notes. I opted to paint them on because that is how it looks to me in shots from the game.
Looks like paint to me.

The image I used for my stencil can be found here: http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=129189
in the first response from Leradny she has a link to the image. I've included it here just in case. I stretched the image until it took up the entire page. That size seemed to match best to me. Also, make sure to place the wings fairly close to the neckline, they're supposed to go across your shoulder blades.



My method was to paint it on with a sponge using the stencil, but this smudged the details quite a bit. I would suggest adding a bit of water to the paint and using a spray bottle to spritz the paint on. I have a theory that this would go on cleaner. Keep in mind, I have not tried this. I cleaned up my wings by mixing a bit of blue with the white and painting in the smudged details.
Blocking is the perfect time to do this, once it's dry, because it's all pinned down, stretched out and secure.




 






 
Stitch the two shoulder straps together once everything is dry. I used a basic whip stitch.

The Trim

CO 8 sts
Knit in stockinette until desired length.
It took two and a little more skeins of yarn for all of it.

you will need three pieces, one long piece to go around the front and neckline of the jacket and two to go around the sleeve openings.
once the pieces are long enough to fit, (length will vary depending on how long you made your jacket.) stitch the two edges together with the knit side out. The fabric will be curling this way naturally because of the way stockinette curls.

Sew the flattened tubes around the edges of the jacket.





For the strips that close the jacket in front make one more small strip the same way about 6” long. This one will be the one you sew the buttons on.

For the strip with the buttonholes, make another strip with the buttonholes at 1 ½” and 3 ½”. Strictly speaking two buttonholes aren't necessary, if you just to one, center it on the piece. For my buttons I made the buttonholes 5 rows long. Vertical buttonholes simply involve switching to a new ball of yarn halfway through to row to create a separation. When I sewed the edges together on the back I simply stitched the edges to the edge of the buttonhole on the front to leave it open.

If ypu have a different method for making buttonholes, feel free. This is just how I did it.


Now you're done! Get a black v neck tank top, a denim skirt and black shorts and go save the world with your knight!





If you have any issues please feel free to contact me, either by commenting, or through my Ravelry account, which is linked in my sidebar. Have fun!

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Here it is!

It's done.  It's finally done.  The trim seemed to take FOREVER.  I suppose, looking at the dates of my posts, it did take a little over two weeks.  I would not have thought it would take that long.















For the trim, I basically knitted a long strip of fabric, 8 stitches across, stockinette stitch, for what felt like a million miles, to go around the front and neckline and the edges of both sleeves.  Stockinette curls up anyways, so it was forming itself into a tube, so I just sewed it shut and then sewed the tube along the edges.

(I do have a minor problem I'm trying to ignore, but I think I'm gonna end up having to fix it.  I didn't measure how long I made the tubes for the sleeves, I figured holding it up to the opening would mean I'd end up pretty much the same on both sides, but I didn't account for knitted fabric's irritating tendency to be entirely different shapes and sizes and different times.  As a result, one sleeve is smaller than the other.  It's not visible when I wear it, but I can feel that one armhole is tighter.  I can detach it and fix it, but it will be a pain.  so, for your reference, I strongly recommend making sure both sleeve pieces are the same size.  which should have been common sense.  sigh.)

The strip for the buttons on the front is the same thing.  sewed the buttons on one and did vertical buttonholes on the other.

Random detail note:  these buttons are smaller versions of the exact same ones I used on the front of my skirt for the rest of Rinoa's outfit so they'll match perfectly.


so there it is.  Took a little over a year, if you include the long hiatus I took.  Five months of real solid work.



It took about two skeins of yarn to do all the trim, plus the ends of other skeins that didn't quite get finished.  so I used almost exactly 19 skeins for this. 

Literally.  this picture I took immediately after finishing at work this morning.  This is the yarn I had left.





So I think I will organize my notes and put together a pattern of sorts for Ravelry, and then not knit again for a long time.

ADFKJGASDFKJLKJHGALKJSDF

THE JACKET.  IT'S DONE.

more info later.  now I just feel like crying from relief.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Hey, look, clothes!

A random clothing post for ya, I haven't had one in a while.  I got in to another of Crowdtap's Old Navy sample shares.  this time it was for dresses.  I only got one coupon to share, so I took Amanda.  I was kinda surprised by our selections.  I thought I would get a sweater dress, maybe one of the cowl neck ones, but then I found this:


and I completely loved it.  admittedly it's noticably shorter on me than it is on the model, but that's what I get for being 6 feet tall.  it's really cute and festive.  I still had a $10 gift card to Old Navy so I bought some cute cable knit tights too.

Amanda, however, did go for the sweater dress, which is really weird, cuz that's never been her taste.  Hers is the one below, except hers was pink and brown striped.  couldn't find a picture of her colors.  but it looked really cute on her with her brown fuzzy boots.   


anyways, we were both pleased.  I love shopping and not spending money!