Category: sweaters

  • FO: Tree Jacket

    Quite a few of you picked out the tree jacket from the Gretel photos yesterday – so here’s the official report!

    tree jacket, done

    Tree Jacket
    Pattern: Tree Jacket from Zephyr Style
    Yarn: The Fibre Company Terra in Acorn, every bit of 8 skeins
    Needles: Denise US 8

    This one took less than a week to knit! Now that’s a quick sweater. The yarn’s definitely captivating, plus the pattern’s simple and chunky enough that I was able to get it out really quickly.

    Modifications:
    As I posted about before, I was pretty short on yarn. I had seven matching skeins, plus the one pinky one – it seems to have worked out fine! I could’ve done the smallest size, as it turns out (and I’m 36″, so it was a gauge issue) and then I might’ve been able to make the sleeves longer or something.

    I knit the second size and it’s a bit baggy under the arms. I do love the garter stitch yoke, and I even love the jog at the beginning of the round.

    tree jacket, back

    The biasing of the lace in the body is really flattering! That was a nice surprise. I ended up using three skeins of yarn for the yoke, another 2.75 for the lace in the body (plus a bit of the pinky one for the ribbing) and then the remaining 1.25 skeins for the sleeves.

    It was a bit hairy – I knit the body long enough, and added a couple extra rounds of ribbing to make sure it wouldn’t roll. Then I weighed the remaining yarn and knit both sleeves at the same time (okay, alternating every couple rounds) and decreasing right away – the pattern has you do quite a few inches straight before decreasing. I managed four decreases before running out of the matching yarn.

    Then I switched to the pinky skein and to stockinette, and just kept going until I was out of yarn. The sleeve length actually works really well for me, so I’m happy. And no leftovers!

    I loved knitting this sweater, and it turned out great. What more can a knitter ask for?

    tree jacket, done

  • rather further along

    Wednesday night at Knit Night, Ken saw me knitting as said something to the effect of, “Gee, you’re a lot further than the last time you posted!”.

    Yeah, that kind of happens when
    a) you really, really like what you’re knitting;
    b) you’re using fairly chunky yarn (on 5 mm needles)
    c) you’re running out of yarn, so you knit faster.

    Also, the photos tend to pile up! So, a snapshot of my knitting week.

    January 22 (Tuesday):
    tree jacket yoke done

    January 23 (Wednesday):
    tree jacket body-in-progress

    January 25 (today):
    tree jacket body done

    All done the body! I really am quite short of yarn, but have nixed the contrast colour idea. Instead, I dug up this skein of yarn which is the same colourway (Acorn) but is from a different lot. It is very, very, very different – it’s the pinky yarn in the bottom ribbing.

    I have about…60 grams of matching yarn left, plus a bunch of the pinky one. Sweater so far has taken about 290 g of yarn, plus the pinky one. Yeah, this one ain’t getting full length sleeves.

    So, the plan of attack – knit both sleeves, going back and forth, knitting up the rest of the yarn equally and decreasing right away. Once the matching yarn runs out, work the cuff in the pinky yarn to whatever length the sleeves turn out to be. I’m hoping for elbow-length, at least.

  • I got nothin’

    Oh wait…I do have a finished sweater! Okay, so the photo kinda blows. But I didn’t want to take another – who knows when there’ll be more daylight?

    drops jacket 103-1

    Drops Jacket
    Pattern: Oh, you know the one…the one everyone’s been making! Drops Jacket 103-1, in the aran weight pattern with long sleeves.
    Yarn: Fleece Artist Aran Alpaca, from an Imogen kit
    Needles: 5 mm?

    So. The knitting was really fast, but, you know, gift stuff got in the way. I’m actually pleasantly surprised at how this turned out – it’s really easy to wear, flattering, and warm (yay alpaca). I love the colours, too – sort of a plummy-purple-brown mix.

    No buttons yet (see a theme around here?) but of course, I’m a fan of the sweater stick, so no big hurry. I think I would like to put some buttons on for the security when it’s closed, but I also like being able to adjust the overlap when I wear it.

    Collar doesn’t really stand up like in the photo, but that’s okay – I think it might be a bit chokey for me (and maybe itchy).

    I love this sweater!