A Shapely Winter Pullover

(I haven’t forgotten about my furmiliation project – I’ve even made some horns! – but life has been layering on the intensity lately on all fronts. At least I’m finally getting around to posting this project – two weeks late.)

Pattern: Alexandra Ballerina Top, from Fitted Knits, by Stefanie Japel

Yarn: Rowan RYC Soft Tweed (56% wool, 20% rayon, 14% nylon, 10% silk), in “bark”
Needles: #10.5
Time to finish: Less than 5 weeks (which is fast for me) 
Motivation: You would not believe how cold it was in January.  I was down to wearing one or two heavy sweaters in rotation.  So I cast on the heaviest yarn I had in my stash.  
Feeling: Love

Love the Soft Tweed – soft, drapey, warm, easy to knit, interesting to look at.  And love simple elegance of the signature cable of this sweater.

Especially love the cable detail on the sleeves.  Which, inexplicably, is not shown in the photos in the book.  

I made only a very few modifications:  I lengthened the sleeves to full-length (they are only wrist-length in the pattern, which I think looks awkward, though that would have kept them out of my food better).   Or rather, I did not shorten them for my short arms, and they came out just where I wanted them.

I changed the neckline slightly to be not as wide and boatnecky and a little deeper – partly so it wouldn’t slide off my shoulders (you can see I couldn’t have made it much wider), partly because I like the shape of a slightly deeper neckline, partly to give more room for my non-dainty upper arms in the spacing of the raglan increases.

And of course I tailored the shaping to my own shape.  The design here is quite simple and elegant, too – no shaping on the front, relying on the cables to pull it in; only a pair of decreases and increases on the back.  

But, following the example of a couple of knitters on ravelry, I started the decreases some distance apart and moved them in towards each other and then moved the increases outwards, to make an hourglass shape instead of pairing them in a straight line down the back.  Love the result.  I’m pretty sure I added extra increases on the sides as well, but that’s just me and my particular pearish needs. 

I also changed all the garter stitch at the neckline, cuffs and hem to seed stitch.  I do love a seed stitch hem.  In the pattern, the background for the cables was also garter stitch, but I thought that would make it too busy, and also tend to pull up the front (since garter stitch has a smaller row gauge than stockinette), so I switched it to reverse stockinette.  Very happy with that choice, too. 

This is by far the best fitting sweater I have made so far.  And I’m trying to get as much wear as I can out of it before it gets too warm – we’ve already hit 70 degrees once or twice!

Meanwhile, I’ve return to the stalled Gathered Pullover.  And there’s been some sock action, as well.

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