Sample Sweaters

I'm a sucker for shop samples. The opportunity to try on a sweater to see that it fits and flatters me is reassuring and alleviates the anxiety that I usually have when knitting a sweater (I fret the whole time that I'm spending weeks (or months) knitting something that in the end will make me look frumpy/lumpy/dumpy).

So, yeah, shop samples seem to practically propel my credit card out of my wallet to buy the pattern and yarn! Which brings me to my current project: Sommelier (Raveled here)

Black Water Abbey Yarns was at Madrona this year and, as usual, had a nice selection of sample sweaters to try on. The Sommelier sweater was there and several of us tried it on and liked it. I bought the pattern and, since BWA was out of the color I wanted, bought the yarn for the sweater from Shelly at Butternut Woolens.

I cast on right away and have made good progress (it's relative - I'm a slow-ish knitter)

Not shown but also done: the sleeves

There are a couple of minor errors in the pattern but easy enough to spot and work around, I've listed all the details on my Ravelry project page.

I finished up the sleeves and prepared to sew them in but there was a slight problem.


Worked as written, the sleeve cap is several inches smaller than the armscye. Mary Scott Huff (the designer) has been quite helpful. We've compared photos and her sleeve and body both have the same number of lace repeats as mine but clearly the sleeves on mine need to be longer for this to work.

So the sweater is in project time out for just a bit.

Because I'm trying to work on my bad habits of procrastination and avoidance that have caused many a project to come to a dead-end in the past, I'm not allowing myself to start a new project until I sort this one out.

Socks don't really count as a project though, right? I had to have something to take on the plane and the sweater just wouldn't work. (That's my rationalization and I'm sticking with it).

Spring Forward Socks in my handspun BFL
(Raveled here)