Finished Measurements and weights

Sleeve yarn used: (length x width post blocking = 15.5 inches x 15 inches (7.5 flat))
First: 50 g, 31 g, 5 g = 86 g
Second: 50g, 36 g = 86 g

Yoke depth post blocking from top of front collar: (7.25 inches)
100 g

Collar: 1.25 inches folded
19 g

Armpits to ribbing: (length x width post blocking = 11.75 x 42 right on target!!)
252.5 g

Pattern notes and experience

The Cargill! What a wonderfully beautiful textured sweater. I was so excited and honored to test knit this for Rebecca and the results lived up to the excitement. Here are my thoughts and notes on the finished item and the pattern!

Gauge and the resulting fabric:
Overall notes:
This is such a squishy, delightful textured fabric! I love it! I repeat, IT’S SO SQUISHY.

More Detailed notes:
I had a hell of a time getting gauge. I have never gauged so much in my entire 18 years of knitting (7 times, folks, I made 7 gauge swatches), which says more about me than the patterns I knit. I fell in love with garment knitting after learning EZ’s percentage system and kind of gave up ever knitting from patterns again.
I went from a fingering/lace combo to a sport weight in order to get a gauge and system that I could maintain for the entirety of the Cargill. I think there’s something about holding two strands double that throws me a bit, so I settled with a single strand. I like how the texture pops on it too!
The resulting fabric has some major drape and feels like the perfect transition piece. It’s got some airflow so I can wear it with a t shirt in autumn afternoons, but also put on a turtle neck to keep warm when the wind kicks up in the morning. You’ll see two pictures, one before blocking and one after, to get an idea of how much my sweater grew ( the colors are off in those pics, the ones outside are true though).
It also took a while to dry, because this baby takes up A LOT of yarn. I ended up spinning out the water in my wash, then putting flat towels in it, then moving it the laundry room where the dehumidifier was going and the folded collar was still a bit damp for the photo shoot.

The Fit
Overall notes:
I love how The Cargill feels on my body, and honestly that’s what’s most important to me. These past three years have kind of knocked loose some of that internalized body image nonsense (only some, it runs deep) and so comfort is the top concern for me in my clothes these days. My biggest concern is that one of the stitches will snag on my dog’s nails as she gives me kisses when I come home.

More detailed notes:
In case it’s helpful to how the sweater might fit on another body, here are some measurements to consider when looking at The Cargill on me.
I’m a curvy 5”2’ gal. My bust is about 39 inches and my hips around 43 inches. I wanted the sweater to hit around the top of my high waisted pants. The sweater bust is at 3 inches positive ease.

Before blocking, I was worried the sleeves and body wouldn’t be long enough, so I order 3 extra skeins of yarn that I didn’t end up using at the time.
After wearing it off and on this week, I might end up lengthening the sleeves by another inch. At the moment, I end up pushing them up to my elbows (which is a cute and comfy look imo, because they bell out without air going all the way my arm. I’m realizing now that I require a hem to act as a barrier so that air doesn’t flow up my arm, which explains why I don’t wear some of my other sweaters…)

The neck line also expanded, which I didn’t want. So I played around with some elastic and I think I have it where I want without it scrunching up. If I still don’t like it come winter, I think I’ll use some of the extra yarn to make a mock turtle neck.
Other than those small things, I love how this drapes and feels like a little burst of sunshine in a hug.

The Pattern
At it’s core, The Cargill construction is a simple ribbed top down raglan. The Cargill is also an all over dip stitch pattern that took about 7 gauges for me to get the feel of it. Rebecca’s neck shaping was A++ and I love the result, but I did need to rip it out once. Only once in large part to the efforts of many of the testers who went before me and their tips and tricks for increasing in pattern. Rebecca’s done an amazing job taking all of our feedback into consideration and even created a tutorial for that specific part of the sweater. Truly, once you get past that, the sweater is very straightforward!
I knit my sleeves before finishing the body because I’m impatient and like small wins to keep me going. As the body got longer, I ended up shoving them inside and almost knitting around the sweater body like it was a basket. The pre-blocked gauge made it stand up a bit, and it was quite fun confusing folks as to what the heck I was knitting.

The Yarn
The first sweater I knit and kept and have continued to wear for myself was in Wool of the Andes Sport, so this yarn has a special place in my stash, and is what I turned to it when I was having issues with my gauge. I knit this sweater in a size 7 needle (Rebecca and I have very different tensions lol) so I knew that I would eventually get some pilling. I am here to tell you I’m already getting some pilling after a few times wearing it. Which is fine, truly, just a heads up! When I knit this again (yes I’m already planning on knitting another one, but with a different gauge) I’m going to use a worsted/lace combo, so I’m intrigued to see how that will go.