sweater | Page 2

FO Friday: Sweet Peasy

I decided to go with with Sweet Peasy for my niece’s Christmas present, because it had just the right blend of pretty detail and mindless stockinette. I’ve gotten rather, ahem, addicted to the show Castle lately (Nathan Fillion, witty humor, romance, and mystery–be still my heart!). I wanted a sweater I could make whilst being riveted to the TV.

(Apologies for the non-modeled picture… I don’t have a small person around to put it on, and modeled shots on dolls or stuffed animals freak me out a little, to be totally honest.)

The specs:

Pattern: Sweet Peasy by Heidi Kirrmaier (Ravelry link)

Yarn: Malabrigo Arroyo in Plomo, about 1.5 skeins. The yarn was really lovely to work with, as per usual with Malabrigo. I’m not a hundred percent happy with the way it striped up in the FO, to be honest… but it’s not too bad. I’m just a perfectionist. :-)

Notes: I raided my vintage button stash and came up with these textured dark green ones, which I think look neat with the grayish-purple.

I thought the pattern was fairly good. I’m something of a discerning customer, haha. The pattern tells you to knit the sleeves first and then pick up body stitches from the underarm. I did it in reverse (body first). I also picked up a few extra sts when joining the sleeves and decreased them on the first round, which closes gaps at the sides of the underarms nicely.

I also added a couple of rows to the garter stitch trim on the bands, since I noticed many of the FOs on Ravelry were curling. It seems to have addressed the problem nicely!

Of course, as soon as I finished this, I spotted another little kids’ pattern that I MUST MAKE… so the nieceling may be getting more than one sweater for Christmas. We shall see.

WIP Wednesday: Design Snag

I’m still working on the same sweater, but I’m not quite as lovey-dovey about it this week.

I finished the body and the neckband, which is good:

But the little jog where the neckband ribbing meets the placket ribbing is bothering me. Which is bad.

The stitch markers are standing in for buttons.

It’s especially bad because I wove in all the ends already… thinking that the main reason I didn’t like the look was because there were dangling ends everywhere. *facepalm*

I think I might have to unpick all the ends, rip it out, and try again… which doesn’t make me very happy. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my year + of designing, it’s that time spent re-doing something that isn’t quite perfect is time well-spent. That was true when I wasn’t designing, too, of course. I just didn’t want to hear it then.

Want to help me get psyched up for all that ripping? :-(