Life's a Stitch

Well, maybe not just knitting, but anything to do with yarn. I've been concentrating on finishing up started knitting projects before I start another one. I'll still sneak in a woven scarf and crocheted in-the-purse projects now and then. Here's the first FO:

The Story:

There's always a story. When I met my husband, some thirty years ago, I was working in a methadone and public health clinic. To de-stress I knit my first sweater, blogged about here. I loved that sweater, created from Wintuk acrylic and probably, to this day, moldering away in a landfill somewhere. The other thing I did to de-stress was take a stained glass class. I married the teacher, but that's another story. 

I always wanted to knit that sweater again, but could never find the pattern, which I think was published in ??? Oh I can't remember the magazine's name, the one that was like Women's Day. I'm dating myself with with the memory lapse and the name of the magazine. Well one day, Blogless Marsha and I were in Apple Yarns and voila! There on display was an updated version of my shawl collared sweater. A free Knitty pattern, YES.  And it required super bulky yarn that I had in my stash. Double YES. 

The details

Pattern: Emerald by Amy Swensen

Yarn: Marks and Kattens Iceland (also manufactured as Iceland but in another brand I also can't remember. The yarn appears to have snow sprinkled all over. (Oh! I just remembered the magazine with the original pattern – Family Circle). I used 14.5 skeins for a size medium. That would be 942.5 yards of yarn. It made an incredibly light in weight, lofty sweater.

Needles: 7.5 mm, which would equal 10.75 US

Modifications: Omitted the y/o's on either side of the cabled on sleeve detail:

The Y/O's really looked silly with bulky yarn. Other mods included making it a little longer, the button bands a little wider and adding two more buttons (using the one-row buttonhole technique) as I didn't like the peek-a-boo belly look in some of the Ravelry photos. In my photo, I used one of C's shawl pins as he hasn't yet gotten around to making the buttons. 

Thoughts: This is a really well written, deceptively easy pattern. The construction is brilliant – it's done bottom up in one piece, with the exception of the shawl collar which is picked up at the end. The only sewing/grafting required is for seven stitches under the armpits. I love everything about this project, it gets full marks for technical merit and execution. It is a more fitted version than my first version and doesn't require a belt. 

OK, I know you won't let me get by without the modeling shot, so here it is, with my brand new fashion statement glasses:

I just forfeited all those "where's the modeling shot" comments.

Oh! I remembered the other yarn label for Iceland. It's Online Linie 97 Iceland. I lied. Didn't really remember it. That's what Ravelry is for.