A sweater recipe for the seasoned knitter, and those who don’t like to be told what to do: just add a bit of confidence and experimentation and cast on!

Sizing: Best fits 32”-44” busts.

Gauge: 5 sts/inch in stockinette. Needle size is used for changing gauge to achieve desired shaping.

Knit long sleeves or short, add a few extra increases for larger bust/shoulders or don’t, or change the Peplum Rib for lace, what will your Magic Medium look like?

Palouse Yarn Company Merino Fine is a smooth single ply superwash merino, without much of its own stretch. However, it has wonderful drape when knit at a loose gauge, which is imperative for this pattern, so when substituting yarn, look for a light fingering weight and be prepared to knit at a worsted gauge.

A moment of inspiration:
I was in love with the yarn and feeling a little lazy. To tell the truth, I was hanging out with my husband and son and a little distracted by the summer evening, the light on the cottonwoods, and the soothing murmur of their voices as they chatted about who knows what -- quantum mechanics, or something. One of them had just handed me a cold glass of amber ale. In my lap was a ball of yarn -- light, silky, mossy green like the underside of a Lobaria Pulmonaria lichen. Life was good.
So good that I decided not to knit a swatch. Sarah, who adores swatching, who has a trunk full of the things and has even made an an entire swatch blanket in an attempt to deal with them, didn’t.
Instead I glanced at a few scribbled numbers from another top down sweater I’d knit, and did what they said. Never mind that the yarn for the first sweater was entirely different in both weight and character. Forget that I didn’t have the size needles I thought I’d need -- that, indeed, I had mistakenly grabbed two needles of the same size (one wood, one metal) on my way out the door. After all, what was the worst that could happen? I’d rip it out and start again.
But it turned out I didn’t need to. The yoke grew under my fingers, the fabric more open than normal, but so nice when I tried it on that I kept going. I separated out the sleeves, started down the body and brought it to my spinning group.
“What’s that?” asked one person. “Fantastic color.”
“Another of my next-to-the-skin t-shirt sweaters,” I replied.
“YOU, Knitting with COMMERCIAL YARN?” asked someone else.
“Yeah,” I said. “But hand dyed. And what yarn.”
I asked someone to try it on so I could see how it was hers despite she a very different body shape. Soon all 7 had slipped it on, needles dangling, and my dear friends-- with busts ranging from 32 to 44 inches -- all looked fine. Better than fine. They looked, as my mother would say, Snappy!
“Can I have the pattern?”
So here it is. Most of my spinning group has knit one. They all look great. Loose gauge knitting, blows me away every time. Who knew?