17Dec2011: All finished! A very mod test knit! Additionally, his yarn turned out to be amazingly warm, and I imagine I will be wearing this often at work in my huge-windowed, but cold, lab.

1) To make up for the smaller sizing because of my gauge, I added a 1x1 ribbed band to the right front, picking up every slipped edge stitch (no skipping stitches). This gave me about 1.5” extra width. It also made things slightly asymmetrical, which I don’t mind. The left edge was done per the pattern, except that I picked up in purl, skipping a slipped edge stitch after every 10 sts. The purl pick-up is brilliant and going on my tips page! It’s an instant neatly-folded edge. I also bound-off into the picked up stitches to save sewing time.

2) I had to add an extra snap to the collar to keep it closed nicely, bringing the total to 8 snaps instead of 7.

3) To keep the pockets from stretching too much around the hips, I sewed the top corner shut for about 1/2 inch. This also made the pocket slit shorter, which was good, because I increased every other row for the pocket instead of every row as the pattern intended, and it took too many rows to get deep enough.

4) For the pockets, I continued the purl st on each side to make it lay flatter. When long enough, I decreased by k2tog all around, every other row, until 6 sts remained, and then I pulled the tail through the loops.

10Dec2011: On the home stretch now. First, it’s clear that my sweater will not be oversized, but at the same time, I still love how it looks. I did try it on my extra-small friend and it looked appropriately oversized and avant-garde Japanese. Oh well! =) The gauge is much smaller than I originally thought (16sts/10cm vs. 12sts/10cm) though I haven’t gone back and looked. It’s pretty clear that the sweater is not big enough around my hips to not stretch out the pockets and show the insides while I wear it closed. I will probably go back and play with this at some point, by increasing heavily while the pockets are being inserted. But, for now, I will finish the test knit and it will look lovely half-opened.

19Nov2011: After ironing out the details, I have now put the huge number of sleeve stitches on holders and started the side seam/knit-in pockets area. The pockets look interesting, I’m curious as to how they will create themselves!

12Nov2011: This is a fabulous sweater/coat designed by a longtime Rav friend, Boknits. I’m helping her test knit it through the Free Pattern Testers group.

She has been very gracious to let me stash bust some not-so-fancy magenta mohair/acrylic blend for it, lol. Let’s hope this not-so-thrilling-to-knit-with yarn can still do her design some justice. Deep inside, though, I think this could look really awesome in this crazy stuff.

The picture is from her test knit thread. As of today, it needs more testers!

I’m holding the Lacette double throughout and getting 12st/10cm on US10/6mm needles. My row gauge is bigger than the 16 in the pattern… let’s see how that works out with those deep raglans.

IntSweMoDo2011#4