Weekender

Somewhere between starting a podcast and my son finishing his senior year, I have gotten really behind on posting about my knitting projects. It stops today!!! 

I said that out loud. Could you tell?  I miss you, little blog, and all the bloggy friends. (Sidenote: autocorrect always changes bloggy to bloody.) So much has happened and I am sure I will back track with posts until readers are thoroughly confused about whether or not my son graduated high school or kindergarten and wether or not I am 29 or 44.  But, first I need to talk to you about something very important:

My Weekender sweater. :)  It didn't get a lot of attention once I finished it. I wore it during one freakishly cold weekend of DFW Fiber Fest (it was recognized and complimented a few times there.) then folded it, and shoved it in the armoire 'til next winter.  That is no indication of how I feel about it, though.

It was a good knit- a great knit, and perfect for that busy time in my life. I cast on before going to Peru. (A trip I haven't posted about here but it is discussed at length in Episode 5 of my podcast.)  I worked on it during the flight and finished it just before leaving for Iceland. Don't I sound worldly?  "Just before jetting off to Iceland..." I'd better enjoy dropping these exciting phrases now because, if the flooring specialists that came to my house earlier this week are correct, I will be spending all my extra money in the coming year or so on completely gutting and rebuilding the floors of our 100 year old home. Weeee!  Hurricanes can create excitement too. Apparently, I was due for a little of this.

Right, The Weekender. You know the pattern. Every single person with an instagram account has knit one. Seriously. And that Andrea Mowry! She makes my goal of slowing down on the pattern hoarding really difficult. If I knit only her patterns, I still don't think I could keep up with her output.   And I knit a lot, guys.  Remember the first year of her designing career, when she offered a giveaway for a year's worth of her patterns on instagram? (I can't believe I spent this much time looking for that photo on instagram- but it was cute!) Well, I was the winner. My Ravelry pattern count jumped substantially that day. I could not believe how much she created in a year!

When I saw this sweater, I knew it had to be mine. As in, Emotional Rescue. (click link and fast forward to 3:00.) I don't hear that with every pattern I choose. Just certain, special ones- like the Clarke Pullover. This was one of those.

Anyway, I knit this for the Stranded Podcast's Commercial KAL, where we used commercial yarn brands for our projects.  My commercial yarn was Cascade 220 in the Stonewash colorway, a very wearable, blue jean-like color. I did all three of the sweaters below in commercial yarn.  They're all completed and still haven't been talked about here...

..but, look, I did learn how to use the portrait feature on my phone for completely natural-looking photographs.

Details: I used size US 5s, I think, and knit the small size. My only modification was to pick up 4 extra stitches for each sleeve.

I wanted it to be a bit shorter than my other sweaters but not too cropped, so I added a little length.  I have a long torso, though.

Here's what I love: the fit, the knitting of it inside out, that slipped stitch down the front and back,

and those shoulders!

(more on ravelry, instagram, and flickr)

I am afraid some podcast viewers think I am really frugal and self disciplined with the yarn buying.  I am...getting there. But before I even started trying, I bought enough Patons Classic Worsted in a Dark Grey Marl for another one of these sweaters.  And it "will be mine, it will be mine, all mine..."

See this knit in other posts here and here.