Finished: Josephine

After several late nights when I should have been working (or sleeping so that I could stay awake at work the next day), I finished Josephine last night. I am prouder of this project than any other I have finished in a very long time. The knitting itself looks good, it fits well, and the finishing work came out beautifully. I think all the sock knitting -- with picking-up of gusset stitches -- has really helped me to pick up edges and do seams. This is the most "professional" job I've ever done on a sweater.



A detail of the cap sleeve -- I love the short-row shaping and the little rolled edge:

And a close up of hte V-neck:

And an apology for the lighting in these pictures. We have yet another storm coming in off the Gulf, and dry spots with natural light will be non-existent for the next several days. So my loving spouse hauled his shop lights into the house and set them blaring. Not ideal, but I couldn't bear to wait until the sun came back.

So, the details:

• Pattern: Jospehine, from the Spring'07 issue of Interweave Knits
• Yarn: Shoeller & Stahl "Mama Mia", mercerized cotton, purchased from Elann.com several years ago for a project I never started. Ball band gage 24 sts/10cm.
• Needles: Addi Turbo circulars -- size 5 for most, size 4 for the sleeve bind off
• Modifications: Added ~2" between the eyelet row and the start of the arm hole. Started the neck shaping at the same time as armhole shaping (rather than just above the eyelet row.) I didn't intend to increase the armhole depth, but ended up adding ~3/4" due to a slight miscalculation on the neck decreases -- and I'm glad I did. The pattern calls for very tight arm holes.
• Wish I'd done different: I wish I had seen Sandi's wonderful posts on ease before I started this sweater. I chose a size with zero ease, and actually hoped the fabric would grow a bit so the sweater wouldn't be too tight. Now I wish I had gone with a couple or three inches of negative ease. The swatches didn't shrink when I washed and dried them flat, but now that it seems likely that the sweater will grow, I'm going to toss them in dryer and see what I get.
• Learned for next time: If I want to modify a pattern, I need to DRAW A FULL SCHEMATIC FIRST. I ended up reworking the back because I tried to work out the revised instructions without referencing a schematic. And I will likely re-use the finishing techniques on other sweaters I do.

I also learned, or am reminded, why I have avoided knitting sweaters by hand. Heavy gages are too warm to be wearable in Houston, but small gages take stinkin' forever to knit! I'm glad I knit this sweater, but I won't be doing another by-hand sport weight top anytime soon.

That said, the thing that I really really really want to start next is the Norah Gaughan's Origami Cardi from the same IK. I plan to do the fun pattern stitch bands by hand, then do the large boring stockinette sections on the knitting machine.

Maybe I'll wrap up a couple of UFO's before I start that, though.