Sunday, October 4, 2009

My Daughter's Sweater


My daughter did not want to go to college after she finished high school. She said that after 12 long years of school she was sick of it and wanted to travel to exotic locations, so no more school for her. Instead she joined the military, saying that this way she can get some job training and go travel the world on Uncle Sam's dime. She enlisted last December and has been in training ever since. Her exotic locale? Idaho. I find this funny like nobody's business.

Funny or not, it's snowed twice there already, the first time on September 30 and the second time yesterday. My poor California girl! She's SO not used to the cold weather she will be having this winter, so I made her a sweater - hopefully the first of many.

This patter is from "Weekend Knits" and I used Encore yarn (a wool-acrylic blend) for ease of care. The project took me about 6 months, mainly because I knit multiple projects at the same time, and also because I usually rip out projects about 3 or 4 times before I am satisfied with the results.

The sleeves took 5 tries:

  • The first to learn the pattern,
  • The second due to mistake in increasing,
  • The third time I got all the way up lengthwise before realizing I had forgotten the increases altogether,
  • The fourth time I increased too much (I had followed the instructions but they looked like bat wings),
  • The fifth try finally did it.

I hate sleeves.

Other than the sleeves, the pattern worked like a charm. This was my first cable pattern, and I wanted an interesting cable that wasn't too complex for me as a beginner cabler. There's no real shaping, so I could concentrate on the cable pattern and that was easily memorized. My favorite design element are the pockets - the pockets are inside the sweater and not just tacked on as an afterthought.

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