Spring Stripes FO

A fun, satisfying project using remnant yarn, finished in time to wear in the season for which it was intended!! Does it get any better than that? (Yup, every bit of material for this was on hand and the pattern was out of my head so it didn't even cost me anything!)

Pattern: Generic Top Down Seamless Pullover

Yarn: Assorted Worsted Wool Remnants

Needles: 6.5mm circular (Body), 5.5mm dpn's (Sleeves)

Start: March 4, Finish: April 4, 2011

I was going for an A line effect - which, given my shape, is typically difficult for me to achieve.  So I tried to use colour and horizontal stripes to visually flatten the plane of the sweater - minimizing my shape while accentuating the sweater's. Here's what I did...

The yoke alternates rows of knit and purl. The colours go from lighter to darker from the collar to yoke's  completion just north of the widest part of the bust where navy blue (the darkest colour in the palette visually narrows the bust at its widest point.

Next the sleeves and body of the sweater as well as my body and the sweater's shape part ways. The sleeve stitches were put on hold and I knit on down towards the hem.

My body gets narrower at this point but the A line shape demands the sweater get progressively wider.(2" around over 15" of length between bust and hem). To accentuate this divergence, the next two colours - bright teal and even brighter apple green, visually advance.

Below that, at my natural waist, I do want to appear narrower while maintaining the increases so I moved to wide bands of a darker colours - grape purple and then lilac both of which visually recede bracketed as they are top and bottom by narrower stripes of brighter, advancing colours - especially those that play up the hem around the bottom.

Just for fun I also added a couple of stripes after turning the hem!

For the sleeves I wanted a straight shape and narrow fit so I quickly crammed 8 decreases or 2" worth into the first three rows of the dark navy stripe at the top of the sleeve where the K2tog's disappear from view. (In the photo above you can kind of see how there is a little puffiness where the yoke ends where things got skinny fast. 5.5mm needles (vs the 6.5mm used in the body) made gauge help out to get a slimmer shape with fewer decreases. The striping on the sleeves nods to the body without matching exactly. Then just for fun I flipped the colours at the cuffs from those at the hem.

The narrow sleeves being a foil to the A line of the sweater I tied them in with the sweater's shape by not decreasing any stitches in the sleeve hems after turning. Thus the bottom of the sleeves flare out a bit. (I did decrease 10% of stitches after turning the hem at the bottom edge of the sweater though to keep that hem hanging straight down.

For jogless, stationary wide stripes I slipped the first stitch on the second row after each colour change. Thank you for the how to TechKnitter!). This approach wasn't possible on the yoke section, because of the narrowness of the stripes (2 rows each) and the fact I was switching from knit rows to purl rows. I tried to fudge things but in the end was quite unsatisfied with the results sooooooo those buttons are there to minimize the offending section by making it look like the two sides of the yoke meeting along that line are buttoned together . I think this makes the variance of the stripes there a bit less offensive to the eye. The buttons are from my stash  harvested from worn out dress shirts.

To indulge in the striping a little more I sewed them on using the four button holes to create parallel lines and used threads for each to mirror the colour changes in the yoke.

Finally I'm quite tickled to say that I'm even happy with the gauge for this knit. At 4 stitches to the inch it is a soft and pleasant fabric with drape that really helps keep the shape from being too stiff and tent-like. So refreshing to feel in this instance at least, gauge was my friend!

Well I think I know what I'm going to wear tomorrow!

Thanks for dropping by!