It is Pioneer by K-bomb from the Spring 2009 issue of knitty. I started it back in October and kint through the v-neck increases (it's knit in the round from the top down) but once I got to the torso I lost all hope and the project went on a long hiatus. It's knit in sport-weight yarn on size 5 needles making it a good light-weight spring garment, but also meaning you need about 200 stitches for every single round. I used Knit Picks new sport-weight version of their sock yarn Stroll. The color is called Hot Rod Heather. The yarn is 75% wool 25% nylon and, best of all, is machine washable. I find the yarn very soft and have no problem with it touching my skin.
One of the things that makes this sweater a bit tedious to knit is that every other row there are itty bitty two-stitch cables that form columns down the back, down the sleeves, and under the arms. They look pretty cool and break up the plain stockinette, but they also mean that this sweater falls into a weird realm of not-quite being mindless take-anywhere knitting, but not really being that intriguing to work on. Here are the columns:
The neck edge is a shell crochet pattern. My crochet skills are by no means advanced, limited mostly to the few amigurumi I have made, but I did not find this very difficult to execute. I have found that even with the crocheting, the neck edge tends to roll under a bit and I have to keep straightening it and patting it flat... I'm hoping this will magically go away otherwise I may have to take the crocheting out and do the v-neck in moss stitch which is how the arms and bottom of the sweater are finished.
That is intended to be a close up of the crochet edging around the neck, not a close up of my chest... The reason it took me 10 days to get back to the blog is because I really wanted to finish this so that I could show you another FO instead of marching through my shameful number of WIPs. Unfortunately this didn't want to be finished on the time line I had in mind. First I knit it to the length called for in the pattern, did the moss stitch, bound off, and tried it on. (Don't remind me that I could have tried it on before doing the moss stitch and binding off, I know!) Anyway, it was too short. Not actually too short in the way that people would look at it and go, "that sweater is too short for her" but too short in the way that when standing normally it looked fine but when I raised my arms above my shoulders suddenly large swaths of my belly were exposed... Not my favorite look. So I added the crochet neck edging and knit the sleeves (I could bear to rip back just then) and after "finishing" the sweater I went back, frogged the moss stitch, knit an extra three inches of body, and re-knit the moss stitch. This meant that I finished a few days later than anticipated, and delayed my blog post. Good excuse, no?
I hope that the shell crochet edging magically stays in place and works out, because it looks really neat.
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