Pattern: Indian Summer by Amy Miller
Yarn: TFA PureWash Fingering in Natural, Trinity (a Club colourway from last year) and Red Label Cashmere/Silk Single in Paisley.
Ravelry Project page here.
I am thrilled to announce that knitting a fingering weight, positive ease, long sleeve, hip length sweater is nowhere near as daunting as I had expected it to be. I have admired and then immediately removed from consideration many beautiful fingering weight sweater patterns because I thought that they were going to be "just too much knitting". Typing that out feels really silly because I clearly love to knit, but I always thought that I would get bored, or that it would take too long, or that I just wouldn't finish it. But then I knit Find Your Fade and realized that that line of thinking is poppycock. I used more yardage in that shawl then I did in this sweater. I have a whole new outlook on sweater knitting and I'm so excited about it!
This is the very first Amy Miller pattern I've knit and I feel like I've only just scratched the surface of her beautiful pattern collection! She's got so many perfectly detailed classic designs. I just love her style. The pattern is very well written and concise, which I appreciate. It's only 4 pages, including the cover page and a decent sized chart and legend. For a sweater that's concise! At fist I wondered if it was going to lack detail but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was just right. I think that many designers (including myself) are guilty of adding in way too much information in patterns, or being too wordy, which can sometimes lead to unnecessary confusion for the knitter. I like Amy's clear and concise style.
The above two photos highlight my two favourite things about this sweater design (other than the fit which I modified ever so slightly for more positive ease) the beautiful lace hem detail and those stripes at the shoulder! I love a good drop shoulder and the way the stripes are handled in the shoulder shaping is just perfection. I opted to graft the front and back shoulders together using kitchener stitch whereas the pattern specifies a 3 needle bind off. I think that the 3 needle bind off is technically the better choice and would result in a crisper line, but while I can kitchener stitch with my eyes closed I can't do a 3 needle bind off to save my life! I tried and the results were tight, puckered, and straight up not attractive. It just didn't work. So I did what I was comfortable with and I'm happy with the results.
Like all multicoloured projects it took me a while to settle on a colour palette for this sweater. A three-colour palette is my sweet spot in the sense that there are literally limitless options! I definitely find that the best way to settle on a colour palette is to start narrowing down your options right away. In this case I decided that I wanted a subtle lace hem colourway. Lots of the FO's of this sweater on Ravelry have a very high contrast, poppy lace colour but I decided that I wanted something softer. Next up, keeping with the softer theme I opted for a tone on tone stripe. These stripes definitely still pop, but it's pink on pink rather than something like black and white. That helped to narrow my options down a bit, but in the end what sold me on this palette was the Paisley colourway. It's sensational. It's a pink/coral/red shade with speckles of every colour of the rainbow. I find myself just staring at those flecks when I'm wearing this sweater. It's hard to capture in photos, but I think you can spot them right?
There is nothing softer or easier to wear than a lovely, drapey lightweight sweater. The fit and style of this sweater reminds me of my beloved Wolf River. For years I've favoured a more tailored and trim silhouette, but there is definitely room in my sweater wardrobe for plenty more of these easy breezy shapes.