Fell in L.O.V.E. with this design the moment I saw it! And it’s my entry in the 2016 Tops, Tanks and Tees Knit-Along over in Shannon Cook’s Ravelry group (info is also on her blog) that runs from April 18 through May 20 (with a possible extension).

The swatch is worked in a pale shade (Barely There Lilac) of Portland Tweed from my stash (which I didn’t have enough of to make this) before the Rosewater I bought in a stashdown arrived in the mail. The gauge is perfect and the blocked fabric is lovely and drape-y. :)

I played a little yarn chicken and ended up using all 6 skeins with a scant 1 metre left over!

Mods:

• I have a little bit more yarn than needed for sizes 1 and 2 (5 pattern repeats) but not quite enough for sizes 3 and 4 (6 pattern repeats). I want this lovely cocoon to be as generously-sized as possible so I tried to get 5½ repeats done and still have enough left to complete the garter stitch edgings but didn’t work. But it turned out that doing 5 repeats resulted in each panel measuring about 19” deep, so after working the 3-needle bind off, before blocking the cocoon measures almost 40” anyway, which is the measurement for the two larger sizes, so yay!!

• When seaming, I followed the directions for Size 3 so my sleeve openings would be generous.

• As written, the bind-off of the sleeve and body trim shows on the RS, which is not my preference and gives the appearance of 5 “ridges”, contrary to the pattern photos. Therefore, I did the trim as follows:

First rnd: Purl
Next rnd: Knit.
Rep the last 2 ends two more times (3 ridges)
Next rnd - bind off purlwise - this gives the appearance of 4 purl “ridges” and the bind off lies to the RS

Unintentional Mods:

• I obviously wasn’t paying attention during the garter stitch body trim and didn’t do the decreases. But I like how it turned out anyway! ;)

Notes:

• 1 skein produces approx. 6½“ of fabric (unblocked)

Tips:

• I placed markers between pattern repeats to save my sanity. ;)
• don’t be tempted to work the selvedge stitches in garter stitch (knit every row) - plain stocking stitch as per the pattern results in a much neater “line” of stitches that you’ll pick up later for the body edging.
• to seam your armhole opening, use the mattress stitch method - it’s the quickest, simplest way to ensure that you’re lining up your opposite edges exactly.

Tips/Tools used for blocking:

• in addition to the usual T-pins, blocking wires make for nice crisp, straight edges - this saves tons of time and makes picking up stitches later much easier.

• I also used a carpenter’s square (a big right angle) to ensure that my centre seam was straight before pinning my wired edges in place.

• After working the garter stitch trim, a quick steam blocking is all that’s required to even out your stitches and make the mattress seaming virtually invisible.