This jacket turned out so very cute. The results were definitely worth the effort!

I inherited yarn from Handability, a non-profit organization, when they shuttered their doors due to Covid. At Handability, I coached seniors with their knitting projects and supplied them with donated yarn. None of the seniors wanted the donated yarn after the weekly sessions ended so they ended up in my stash. I am using the stash to knit warm items for Wool-Aid.

After knitting the sweater yoke, I looked at the remaining yarn and realized that two skeins are lighter in color. Ooops! So, I used the darker shade to knit the sweater body and sleeves and the lighter yarn as a contrast color for the pocket linings, ribbings, and collar. My plan hit a small snag when I ran out of the darker yarn with 18 rows to go on the right sleeve. I finished the sleeve with the lighter shade and hopefully, it’s not too noticeable.

This yarn is attractive but is heavy and tiring to knit with. Furthermore, there were so many breaks in the yarn. The yarn is either more fragile than it looks or the moths love it.

Diane Soucy’s patterns are always well-written and a straightforward knit. I used the suspended bind-off for my loose bind-off.

Zipper installation

I found a separating zipper in my mom’s zipper stash. I’m guessing that it might be 50 years old. It was too long so I followed Melissa Mora’s tutorial on How to Shorten a Zipper. The teeth are incredibly difficult to remove. I found that it was best to pry one leg of each tooth at a time.

When the zipper is shortened, the top stop is removed. Do not pull the slider to the top because the slider will slide right off. I know this because I foolishly did that.

I bar tacked the zipper to the sweater to make a new top stop. I tested this a few times and it works great. The slider stops where it is supposed to. Finally, I sewed the zipper into the sweater by hand using the back stitch.

Sweater Dimensions

Gauge

Pattern gauge: 14 stitches per 4”
My gauge: 18 rows and 12 stitches per 4” with size 10 needles so I went down to size 9 needles