Hooray for my new favorite sweater! I finished knitting this sweater last weekend, have worn it without the buttons all week, and finally bought some buttons and sewed them on today just in time for an afternoon walk in the forest with Chris and Stella. This forest is right at the end of our street, literally about 100 paces from our front door. It has beautifully maintained paths and lovely little streams running through it, I expect you'll be seeing a lot of it popping up in the back ground of FO shots. It's one of the many things we love about living in our new house.
I knit this sweater in TFA Yellow Label DK Weight yarn in the Sunset and Velvet colourways. I've been in love with the way these two colours feel together for months now, and am really relieved to say that now that I've worked with them together they did not disappoint!
As we all know, this is not my usual cool blue colour scheme. It seems as though I'm branching out. Perhaps it's the cooler weather, perhaps it's personal growth; more and more these days I'm finding myself drawn to these warm, comforting tones of rusts and rubies.
I knit this sweater in one piece, knitting back and forth for the body, switching colours every two inches, then knitting the sleeves on DPN's, joining and continuing knitting back and forth for the yoke. At about the 1 1/2" mark after joining the pieces together I began doing raglan-style decreases and at the same time decreased every 6th row at the neck edge to make a v-neck cardigan.
I then picked up stitches along the button band and neck edge and worked k2, p2 ribbing for 2" before binding off. To determine the sizing I first knit a gauge swatch, after having determined my gauge I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system to get the perfect fit. This system has never let me down! I used the same method here and here and achieved exactly the results I was looking for.
This cardigan is comfy and cozy without being oversized or frumpy. I had very high hopes for this knit. I wanted it to be the sweater that I grabbed when I wanted something easy to throw on, no small task! Sometimes you can knit the most beautiful sweater but end up rarely wearing it. I find it all really comes down to a feeling. You can't fake comfort and on a cold winter morning, when I crawl out of bed and need to grab a cardigan to throw on over my pj's, I don't care how lovely the sweater is, if it doesn't have that feeling, I wont grab it. I never really know if I will feel that way about a sweater until it's done and sitting in my closet with my other sweaters. Well, this one has been grabbed almost every morning this week! It looks great with jeans and a neutral top (my uniform!) and provides plenty of warmth and knitterly/wooly comfort without being stifling.
The sun was starting to go down as we were taking these pictures. Chris didn't have much time, but don't you think he did a great job? I think it's fair to say that his photography skills are improving. I didn't crop any of these shots, he's just getting artsy with his close ups, I like it!
What a perfect fall day, leaves carpeting the trails in the forest, warm sun shining through the sparse branches and a new knit to keep me warm, what more could a girl ask for on a Wednesday?
Ravelry project page here.