Dude, you so forgot your pants

Something drew me to Rowan Cork. Not so sure what. I tried it way back at the Taste of Yarn I hosted (which I just realized was OVER a year ago, so strange how quickly time flies.) Didn't hate it, didn't love it. However, something drew me to the bag of sale yarn. I walked out of the store without it. Rob is the one that insisted that we go back and purchase enough for me to make the sweater I had spotted in the Rowan Cork book (Bless if you're curious.)

As I began to swatch I really began to love the yarn and wanted to make a simple top down pullover with ribbing at the neck, sleeves, and waist. I wanted subtle shaping and a sweater with little ease (to make up for the bulk of the yarn, Cork knits up at ~3.5 sts/in) I was not up for writing a pattern. I shuffled through my knitting books and found a sweater that I have been coveting for awhile. Which, ultimately, made me think that when I find something I like and would like to knit that I should record it somewhere. Thereby allowing me to buy yarn with a purpose when the need comes. Does anyone have any ideas where I could write these things? What? Where? In a knitting blog? Huh. Great suggestion. I'll have to look into that.

The sweater - The Lace Leaf pullover by Teva Durham. It totally satisfied my requirements, minus the waist shaping but I could easily add that. The construction, as many of you probably know, is a bit original. It's knit top down and bottom up with a bunch of grafting in the middle. I wasn't up for that so I eliminated the bottom leaf. My swatch told me that I needed to make some changes due to a difference in gauge. I pulled out the calculator. A quick look at the pattern made me realize that I'd have to size the pattern down as I wanted a tighter fit with less ease than the designer intended. I pulled out some paper. I realized I wanted it a bit longer. I pulled out the pencil.

Next thing you know I'm rewriting the pattern. Good bones by Teva, I modified based off of her ideas.

I started knitting top down in the round (I prefer sweaters with seams...but we were going for easy here). And I knit and I knit. My swatch told me that I would loose about 12% of my length so I knit it 12% longer than I would like it to ultimately end up. I finished all of that damn twisted stitch and, last night 10pm, I tried it on with my new shoes.

Ever had those dreams where you go to work and realize, after you arrive, that you've forgotten your pants?



This is the sweater for you. Long enough to cover it all up, erase your mistake, pretend it was all on purpose.



At least that's my story.


This is pre-block and a little bit stretched to hide my bizzness.

My fingers are crossed that the 12% length skrinkage really shakes out.

Oh, and this photo-shoot is dedicated to Kay. "This Fresca is for you!"