Monday, March 23, 2009

Katelyn Sweater & Emma Jacket

[Edit: I decided to rename this post for easy Emma Jacket finding, for those of you linking here from Christina's blog.]



For my birthday in 2006, I received a very uncharacteristic, but highly cherished, gift from my husband: a rather large sum of money on a gift card to a local yarn store. For months I couldn't decide what I wanted to buy and made at least a half dozen trips to see what might inspire me. Sometime early 2007, there was a clearance sale, and that's when I spotted eight balls of Katia Tundra in colorway "greens." It was magically soft and the colors were very appealing to me. It was also going to be the first project that I wanted to knit for myself, and it would be a sweater. I thought it would be a cardigan, but when I couldn't find a pattern that I liked, I decided to knit a somewhat generic pattern with the help of this pattern: http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/katelyn/katelyn.html. I used a store-brought sweater to help me size it just right. I was a little skeptical if the collar would stay firm and not expand on me and then went for a turtle neck look, which I really like. I also didn't want the additional work of the stitching, and I think it turned out perfect.



This is a gratuitous shot of my dog Loki, helping me model the sweater.



The details:
Pattern: http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/katelyn/katelyn.html
Size: Small
Yarn: Katia Tundra in colorway "greens"
Needles: Size 6 & 8 metal circulars
Start date: February, 2007
Finish date: June 1, 2007





Recently, I've been in "stash bust" mode and was looking for a smaller project to finish using up this yarn. I ran across the "Emma Jacket," the product of local designer, Christina Wall.



Check her patterns out at classiccables.blogspot.com. This was my first opportunity to try a top-down sweater, and it was so addicting and a quick project. I love trying the sweater on during the knitting process. I made only a few modifications. I knit one less sleeve increase than recommended for the size. I was afraid that I would run out of yarn. Around 5 yards of yarn remained at the end of the project. That was perfect planning! The sleeve length turned out to be exactly as long as the sweater body, a look which appealed to me. I also used size 8 circular needles for the sleeves, because I was knitting way too tight on size 7 DPNs. Finally, I knit an extra two rows before dividing the sleeves, to reduce the possibility of too little room under the arms.



The Details:
Pattern: Emma Jacket, cropped version
Size: 34
Yarn: Katia Tundra in colorway "greens"
Needles: Size 7 Clover bamboo 36" circulars, Size 8 Clover 16" circulars, Size 5 Clover bamboo circulars
Start Date: March 2, 2009
Finish Date: March 18, 2009



Finally, a blocked update on the previous post. The little sweater that troubled me so much really turned out not so badly after all. It's all ready to be gifted to a lucky new someone. :o)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Love the Emma Jacket! You did a really good job on it! Congrats!