September 16, 2023

Swatching

Will do German short rows instead of W&T

September 19, 2023

Re-swatched with both pink and white in different order than the first swatch. The pink just looked more blue and cool IRL so I’m saving it and will make a low contrast spring version with pink, like this: link text

Cast on last night and began first chart tonight.

September 27, 2023

Separated for sleeves a couple nights ago. I have a couple inches of body knit and tried it on tonight. It fits fine except for one stinkin row across the bust that I must have knit tighter than the other rows. I hope it will loosen with blocking

October 7, 2023

This is on hold while I work on a quick test knit but I steam blocked it and it seems the tight row will stay a bit tighter than the rest, but the gauge did loosen up and I will be comfortable wearing it. I imagine aggressively wet blocking will help even more. Mojo officially back and I’m looking forward to working on this again when the test knit is due next week.

October 24, 2023

I have knit the body to length… i added 2”. Since there is no ease, the 10.5” length stretched width-wise and didn’t even come to my naval. I’m sure it will relax a bit with blocking, but the floats will keep it from relaxing too much. I’m not super happy with the color order on the previous 4 color-change sections (light grey and dark grey don’t have enough contrast to be side-by-side), but not unhappy enough to frog back two days of knitting. Will this be a hasty decision I regret? I HOPE NOT!! I did, however change the color order for the last 2 sections I’m working to increase the contrast so I hope it will not look bad with the high contrast yoke, low contrast upper abdomen, then high contrast again at the waist. We shall see…. I should finish the hem ribbing in a couple days.

November 12, 2023

Finishing up sleeve 1. It is pretty fitted with ZERO to negative ease, so the sleeve length called for in the pattern is stretching so much around my arm that it hits me as a 3/4 length sleeve. Knitting 3 extra inches before starting cuff. Ran out of Colorwork rows and jumped back to row 43 and repeating from there.

I’d like to make a low contrast version of this in the future and I think I will make it with 4” positive ease.

November 12, 2023

Finished the first sleeve. Need to set it aside to finish a Christmas gift that needs to be finished before Thanksgiving but I am so eager to finish this!

November 20, 2023

Finished the last cuff and blocked it last night. The cool thing is the sweater is so light and airy it’s already dry, even in this dreary weather.

I think I did alright, for my first colorwork sweater. In hindsight I would probably prefer a teeny bit of positive ease to make up for the lack of stretch in the brushed alpaca silk AND my inexperience… the row that joins in the round is just the slightest bit tighter than the rest and pulls across my bust. I stretched it out as much as possible, but I am hoping it doesn’t snap.

I am not weaving in all the ends. The cuffs, collar, and hem are woven in and that’s gonna do it.

preblock:
collar to hem: 22”
sleeve collar to cuff: 18”
sleeve underarm to cuff:
underarm to hem: 14”
across bust: 14”
raglan: 9”

blocked:
collar to hem: 21”
sleeve collar to cuff: 27”
sleeve underarm to cuff: 20”
underarm to hem: 15”
across bust: 16.5
raglan: 9.5

150 grams total