A Tale of Two Sweaters, Part 2

Although I've done a lot of knitting since taking up the needles again two and a half years ago, it wasn't until this year that I finally finished a complete sweater. As I mentioned earlier, this summer I finished my first complete adult-sized sweaters since 1985. (Though I'm not sure that sleeveless *quite* counts.) Both sweaters took about 2.5 skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece.

The first one I finished was Soleil, from Knitty.com Spring 2005. It was a very enjoyable knit, but I'm not happy with how it fits. As you can see from this picture, there is quite a bit of extra fabric under the arms. The pattern suggests a second row of single crochet to tighten up the armholes, but it isn't enough to compensate for the amount of fabric. I do plan on making this pattern again, but I will probably add short row shaping to the front instead of quite as many increases on the side.


The other sweater I finished this summer is as much of a joy to wear as it was to knit. It's the Lutea Lace Shoulder Shell from Interweave Knits, Summer 2007.

I started this sweater as my Stitch N Pitch project for this year. The body of the sweater is perfect Knitting-In-Public mindless-type knitting. The top part is very cleverly designed & fun to knit. The only thing I have to complain about with knitting this sweater is finding a knot in two of the skeins of Cotton Fleece, which was really only a minor annoyance.




In fact, I love this sweater so much, I decided to start another one. This one is with Cascade Sierra, purchased the same time as I bought the Cotton Fleece at the same Going-Out-Of-Business sale.