New Sweater!

When last we looked at the Caftan Pullover, it looked something like this:

The pieces were being slowly completed, and attached together.
Tuesday morning, I sewed the buttons, from my collection, on.
Today, it looks like this:


I am well aware that this is an unflattering and poorly lit picture. I live in Halifax, the place that things go when people tell you to "stick it where the sun don't shine." Because, you know, the sun doesn't really shine here. Just for two hours at a time when I am WORKING and cannot enjoy it properly. The picture is doubly unflattering because I jumped out of bed, put the sweater on, and asked Richard to take a picture of me. "Right this second?" "Yes." Well... I usually look more... showered.

This sweater was a teaching sweater... I learned that even if I get gauge, different yarns behave differently. (Give me some credit, at least I knew to go for the same weight of yarn.) This yarn knits at the same gauge as the berroco stuff the pattern calls for, but it's very drapey. As you can see from the picture, I had to do some modifications to the front of the sweater. The front placket pieces flapped around unattractively in the drapey yarn, so I reknit the garterstitch border on much smaller needles to give them some structure, and then ended up sewing it shut, with a keyhole closing for the top motif. I think it still looks nice. Clearly, the material and the firmness of the yarn itself needs to be taken into consideration. I wore the sweater yesterday, and I've gotten lots of compliments... I think it's easy to tell it's hand made, but it doesn't look homemade... if youknowhatimean.

Anyways, the sweater took much less yarn than I calculated, so I have half a bag of yarn to go back to Michaels... which gives me a little mad money to play with.

Next project in the knitting queue due for completion? Fiddlesticks.