KNIT: SWEATER LOVE, MY BURNISHED CAPE COD

Oh friends, how I looooooove this garment.

Thea Colman's Cape Cod

Oh my gosh, I knit a full-sized garment! Not a hat, not a scarf, but a really truly adult-sized garment. 

And I love you so... you with your squishy yarn and beautiful lace design.

This is my version of Thea Colman's Cape Cod Sweater. I'm a bit of a fan of Thea's designs, and this is my first knit. My first of many I suspect. (You can find Thea's patterns on Ravelry. Just remember, you will need to join Ravelry to log in and access these).

I had knit a few hats just immediately prior to taking this rather large leap of faith with my burgeoning knitting skills, but I am so glad I had the nerve to go for it. 

Gorgeous lace detail - excuse the pilling on the sleeve,I have literally worn this thing to death

I used Amy Butler's Belle Organic DK for Rowan in Ochre: it's a beautiful 50% organic cotton, 50% organic wool. I find this the perfect weight and composition for Sydney winters which are never that cold. The stitch definition is wonderful. Unfortunately this yarn has been discontinued. But, you may get lucky like me and pick up some from Sunspun.

This knit is a top down, in-the-round scenario, which I adore. I hate the idea of having to seam a flat knit garment. You literally finish this one and the only tidying you need to do is weaving in the ends and blocking it. Really you could pretty much finish casting off and pull that baby straight on. What's not to love about that? All up it took about 6 weeks of knitting about 1.5 hours a day, most (but definitely not all, I've got a life!) days a week. I was pretty happy with that.

Changes to the pattern:

I made no real departures from the pattern except the following minor ones:

• added just a little bit more raglan depth before separating the sleeves, but probably didn't really need to.
• added just a touch to the body length (about 1 inch) as I am quite long waisted and really didn't fancy a cropped sweater. 
• added just a little extra length (perhaps 1/2 inch) to the sleeves. I really don't think of myself as having gorilla-like proportions, but neither do I like sleeves that ride up and have me constantly yanking them down.

Lessons learned:

• How to TINK. Folks, for those who don't know, that's "knit" in reverse and that's exactly what it entails. Just pray you don't have to tink back over 300 stitches to find and fix a bitch of an error (more than once, people, more than once!). That tinking included SSK, K2tog, SL1 K2tog PSSO and increases. I am a serious expert at tinking now. Grrrr. Lesson? Count the remaining stitches in each and every lace section before moving on, instead of finding extra or missing stitches on the next round.
• Pilling is a bitch. You can see it in that second shot. Major pillage. Gotta take a time out and give that sucker a shave. From what I've read pilling can tend to stop after a few washes so we'll see.

So that's it folks, my new garment crush. 

Now, I'm looking for my next project. What's your favourite yarn or knitting pattern and why?