[ previous entry ]

I Made a Sweater.

I actually have another finished project to show you! The funny thing about blogging less is that the knitting in progress gets lost in the shuffle and it seems like finished knits just appear out of the blue. I started this sweater on May 23 (don't you love Ravelry for your start dates?) and finished it right around the end of July, so it took about two months to knit.

It's the Dollar and a Half cardigan, from Interweave Knits, Spring 2007! I so love me some Véronik Avery patterns.

Yay, I finished it!

I used three skeins of Brooks Farm Willow that I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool earlier this year. I really, really love this yarn. It's a wool/bamboo blend, and it's soft and drapey and lovely. It becomes even softer and prettier after blocking.

This photo shoot was very sweaty.

It was a close call with the yarn. My stitch and row gauge were a teeny tiny bit off, which I think may have caused me to need a bit more yarn. I tried to get an extra skein of the yarn (Ravelry, Flickr, even emailed Brooks Farm, and they were super nice, although they sold out of this colorway at MDS&W), but I realized after finishing all the sweater pieces that my sleeves were uber long.

So, I seamed until I was almost out of yarn, and then I took some yarn from each sleeve to finish things up. (How I did it: I got a piece of scrap yarn and ran it through a row of stitches right above the ribbing on a sleeve. Then, I snipped one stitch, and unraveled a row of stitches, which detached the ribbing, and gave me a row of live stitches still attached to the sleeve. I used the ripped out ribbing to seam and do buttonbands, and then I put the row of live stitches back on my needles and knit down from there, finishing the sleeves up. Does that make sense? It was actually really easy!)

I do think the sleeves as written are LONG. So, be aware of that if you knit this. Other things to note: I did stockinette in between the lace panels instead of the reverse stockinette that's in the pattern. Also, lots of knitters have mentioned the stockinette panels puffing out in between the lace panels, so I went down one needle size for every stockinette panel, and that seemed to help with the puffiness. I still have a little of that on the sleeves, but it's definitely still wearable.

The lace pattern is easy to memorize, and once I did, the knitting is fast. It's nice too, because the lace panels break up the stockinette, so I didn't get bored. I seriously love this pattern, y'all. LOVE. I'm so happy with my sweater! Now, I have to put it away for probably four more months until it's a little bit colder in Georgia ... because it's pretty much in the 90s all the time right now. Oh, being a knitter in the South. Sigh.

Anyways. This is definitely my best sweater yet - it fits great, it's long enough (which is usually a big problem for me) and I like the way the buttons turned out, which can sometimes make or break a project for me. YAY finished wearable sweater! (Thanks to Jacob for the pics - we were both sweating after like two seconds outside, but he persevered and got some good shots for me.)

Next up? I'm going to try and knit a February Lady Sweater for the Ravelympics, using some Silky Wool I picked up at Halycon Yarns. I've never done any knitting olympics before, so we'll see how I handle the pressure...

and also! earthchick is having a raffle on her blog for a really great cause, and it has some seriously amazing prizes. so you should go check it out! (and while you're there, check out her Sunshine top! so cute.)

If you tried to leave a comment and got a blank page, please try again - if the blank page comes up, hit refresh and see if that fixes the problem. It may be time to upgrade to MT 4.0...or Wordpress. Gah.