Sample for Swans, in their brand-new All American yarn!
Apologies for so many alpaca photos. I had a super hard time choosing my faves! But you can see they appear to approve of the sweater. :)

Yarn
I’m so excited about this yarn. The color is very lovely--a rich gold-green with some darker moss-green heathering. Knits up into a very sturdy, dense fabric. It’s very, very warm and cozy. It feels itchy when you first start working with it, but it soon softens and feels completely itch-free while wearing. I did NOT want to take this off and send it back to Swans!

Full yarn review here.

Pattern
The pattern is super fun to work up. But all the cables and the moss stitch panels mean it’s not exactly mindless in-front-of-the-tv knitting. You have to pay pretty close attention to all your different counts. I love the hourglass shape created by the claw cables on the sides--I didn’t even realize this was happening while I was knitting!

If I had made this for myself, I would’ve knit at least another inch before joining the sleeves, and then shortened the upper bodice by an inch or so as well, as the arm scye is too long for my particular shape. But I’m super petite, so it’d probably be fine for others! I’d also bring the neckline in more, as boat necks always make me feel like I have to constantly fiddle with my bra and/or tank top straps.

Progress notes:

9.14.2014: swatched. Gauge is right on, cast one for 1st sleeve.

9.17.2014: sleeve 1 finished.

9.18.2014: starting sleeve 2.

9.21.2014: sleeve 2 finished. Starting body. So many stitches!

9.29.2014: oh no. Just noticed a mis-crossed cable 21 rows back. Sob. At least I can fix just the cable panel and don’t have to rip back the whole thing. But still. Tedious and no fun. Only about an inch to go before bust increases, though!

9.30.2014: starting bust increases.

10.1.2014: joined 4th skein of yarn (sorry, forgot to track others!)

10.4.14: bust increases done, sleeves joined to body. Let’s see how well I do keeping track of 3 different cable charts now (sleeves are on a different row of diamond cable chart than body. If I wasn’t knitting this exactly to spec, I would’ve made the body longer than called for so all diamond cables would be on same row to save my sanity a bit)! Oh well, that’s what scratch paper is for, right? :)

10.10.14: joined 5th skein of yarn.

10.18.14: joined 6th skein of yarn. Almost done with sleeve cap and neck shaping; project on temp hold while waiting for pattern clarification from designer.

11.7.14: errata received, sweater finished! Photos soon.