March Winds and April Showers Bring Forth . . .

I pinned this sweater by the Ulla Johnson brand last year, as soon as it popped up in my Pinterest suggestions. Oh yes! I thought. That’s really beautiful but there’s no end of what about it I’d change: the sleeves are weird,the flowers a little heavy really, and it looks like there might not be anything going on in back. So clearly I would have to knit one myself if I wanted to wear it, or forget the sweater altogether. A knit friend I was chatting with one day agreed with me, and we texted back and forth for a few days about the someday when we would get around to it. Eventually both of us came to the same conclusion that “someday” was most likely never.

The week ahead of Massachusetts shutting down, I drove to Salem to see Ana at Circle of Stitches on what turned out to be a very slow day for her shop. People were already staying home, and retail browsing wasn’t on the menu for those who were still out and about. We had a lovely time though: she unpacked shipments, and I knit in the window, talking to Erin who came by and to a few strangers who wandered in and back out again. Four people, all day, and me.

I decided to buy some yarn to tide me over for a bit, and I reminded myself of the likely never sweater.

Superwash was my choice since I knew the sweater would get a workout in the making, getting turned over a lot while I embroidered it, and all that harassment can take its toll on a delicate yarn. Ana had Berroco UltraWool in stock, so I bought what she had on hand in the Beetroot color, and she called them to have drop shipped the rest of the sweater quantity in a matching dye lot from their warehouse. (Berroco is drop shipping for their yarn shops, so if you are looking for a SQ: support your LYS and the good folks at Berroco too. Remember pals, all companies are small business in the yarn world. Berroco employs only about 18 people).

The sweater itself was a fairly simple affair. I wanted a blank canvas, but a well-proportioned one. I’ve seen a few examples of designers combining raglan and yoke shaping over the years, and I always thought it made a lot of sense. For me, traditional yoke shaping in “Increase” or “decrease” rounds (depending on the direction you’re traveling) always leaves me with a little too much fabric in the back. The flat circle yoke which Instagram loves so much is a horror show fit on my body. My chest fills out the front but nothing like that is going on between the old shoulder blades. So I worked regular increase rounds three times, then changed to raglan shaping for the last stretch of the yoke, and ended up with a happy fit I always thought would be the result of that modification. Yay! and congrats to everyone who has already figured that out. I’ve finally caught up there.

I used tubular bind offs everywhere (SUCH a pretty finish) and found myself with a slightly oversized (by design) sweater in a couple of weeks. On to the embroidery.

(to be continued)