Sunday, October 9, 2011

FO: Vivian Sweater

Another break to check off one of my happiest knitting accomplishments right now- the Vivian sweater! The lovely Duluth fall colors helped to show off the bright awesome coloring.
Pattern: Vivian by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: 7 skeins of Cascade 220 in Colorway 9455, Lot 0241- or as I call it, Caribbean blue turquoise!
Needles: Size 8 Denise interchangables
Size Made: 36 Bust (it's nice and snug- no baggy Tshirts under this!)
Made For: Myself!
Time Frame: May 7, 2010-October 9, 2011
Modifications: I added two mirroring cables in the seed stitch on the back, so it's got even more cables, and I increased the width and depth of the hood by increasing the seed stitch on rows 15, 17, 21, 25, 29, 35, 41, and 49. Instead of knitting only 50 total rows for the hood, I knit 71 rows, then worked row 51 on row 72, worked row 52 as written in the pattern, and rows 53-62 became rows 74-83, ending with row 63 as Row 84. I'm much happier with how it turned out with the bigger hood, so I highly recommend doing that.
Worst Part: Letting an entire winter go by and not working on it at all, when it easily could have been done just after Christmas. Knitting-wise, getting the very first row with all the cables established was definitely the worst. From there it wasn't bad at all.
Best Part: I love love LOVE the cabling on this thing- this only solidifies the fact that my favorite type of knitting is that with cables in it. I wore it out last night and got a lot of compliments already- most people can't believe that I knit it, and when they ask if it was hard I usually say as long as you know where you are in the pattern, it's fine. :)
I also loved doing this sweater as a KAL with Red, one of my knitting partners. It was excellent motivation when I heard she was done with the body or arms to really kick me in the butt to get going again. We're going to do a photo shoot with the two of us together in our Vivians sometime soon here, when our crazy schedules finally match up. :)
Until then, I'm happily warm in my bright sweater... maybe pondering what my next sweater will be... this? Or perhaps this?

2 comments:

SteveQ said...

Wow. Simply... wow.

groshe said...

I agree with you about that very first row. Had to restart almost ten times. For me (not having had any experience with charts previously), there have been a lot of places where, if you don't know the rules of charts, you can make errors necessitating a lot of ripping out and starting again. Love the pattern though!