Easter Egg

Is finished! I spent Friday night finishing the bottom and weaving in ends. It's bright and cheerful and comfortable. The yarn is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. I would use it again, although I did notice some uneven dyeing in the lighter pink skeins. It's not noticeable in the finished sweater. (This sweater used 3 skeins of each of the pinks and one of the yellow for a size which in a store would probably be classified as petite).

The sweater is knit from the top down following Barbara Walker's simultaneous set in sleeve method. I made just a few changes: because it is mostly cotton and will stretch with its own weight, I used a long-tail cast on for the shoulders at the very beginning, rather than an invisible cast on. I picked up for the front right through the first row of stitches. For the back neck, I attempted a shallow shaping rather than making it straight across from shoulder to shoulder. It worked fine, but were I to do it again I'd use a real cast on rather than an invisible cast on, to avoid stretching. I started my rounds at the left back sleeve seam, and decided I could live with the jog in the stripes, because the method I read about for avoiding the jog also moves the seam over by one stitch each time you have to use it. Maybe I'll figure that out on another sweater.

There are darts in front and back and the side seams are shaped too. The bottom edging is seed stitch rather than ribbing, so that it hangs gracefully and doesn't hug the hips. All cast offs are tubular--cool! The first project on which I've used that technique. Because I use what Mary Thomas calls a "combined" method of knitting, my purl stitches face a different way on the needles than my knit stitches, conveniently situated for easy needle movements during the cast off.

Ironically, the sky has just dumped a load of snow here. But I expect I'll be able to wear this sweater soon enough.

Comments

[June]

Looks wonderful, Carrie! Can't wait to see it in person.