To celebrate the new BrooklynTweed Winter 16 collection (Honestly how do they know just when I'm finishing up one of their projects so they should launch a new line and lure me in?) I thought I'd share my latest BrooklynTweed creation, my Benton Sweater by Julie Hoover (from the BT Winter 14 collection....I'm only 2 years behind no big deal...). I knit it with Drops Alpaca which resulted in a really light weight, but very warm, sweater with really nice drape...perfect for an over sized sweater :)
Benton is a super comfy, pull over, roomy, 'boyfriend' sweater (let's be clear it's not 'my boyfriend's sweater' it's mine, #fluffyblondemonster go away! this won't fit you!) ahem. Anyways, the sweater features an over sized fit in the body with arm hugging sleeves, (past the drop shoulder anyway) which helps it look comfy without being overly huge. Given my short stature I knit the smallest size avalible, giving me a postive ease of only +9.25" instead of the suggested +12-16"....and I'm glad I did! the body is roomy without making me look like a child wearing adult clothing...
The pattern also has a split hem, which you can kind of see in the above photo, and an interesting overlap of the ribbing in the V-neck, which you can see in the photo below. All the ribbed edges were either started/finished using tubular cast on/off, a method I am finding I'm liking more and more (If you don't know what a tubular cast on/off is it's a way of making an edge look like the knitting is wrapping around to the wrong side when knitting ribbing, it's a neater looking finish then a regular cast on/off edge).
I really like the overlap at the neckline....it does require some steam blocking to get it to sit flat after adding the neckline, keep that in mind if you attempt this pattern
I actually knit this sweater before Christmas, and blocked all the pieces, but didn't get around to finishing the seaming (I find you really have to be in the mood for seaming, it takes way more concentration than knitting) until this week.
This project started off great! gauge swatch matched up perfectly using the suggested needle sizes (I typically have to go up a size) and knitting hummed along smoothly....I even knit the sleeves two at a time #likeaboss. Then I ran into my first bit of bad luck.....while weaving in the thread tails from the different stripes (and watching tv at the same time, tisk!) I cut into the body and made a hole! Panic ensued followed by my commonsense saying "keep calm and consult the googles". A few minutes of frantic googling and about an hour of work later I had a fix that involved weaving in some new yarn....it didn't look very pretty at the time but after blocking you can only really see it if you look for it :D (the fix was so good that I completely forgot to take a picture of it) crisis averted! Once I got to seaming things took a turn for the worse again.....I couldn't get one of the stripes to line up nicely when I seaming the body and eventually had to just leave it since it was only off by one stitch on one side.....then I used the wrong colour as well as starting on the wrong side when picking up to knit the neckband and had to rip about three rows out and start again....then when I was finishing the neckband I forgot I was doing a tubular cast off cut the yarn so I had to re-attach it to finish the cast off.....AND THEN, while I was seaming the sleeves in, I put one sleeve in upside down! Which wouldn't have been a problem except it was the one sleeve where I had forgotten to do the extra step for 'jogless stripes in the round' on two of the stripes......I knew it was going to bug me being able to see my mistake on my arm every time I wore the sweater so I went in and ripped out the sleeve seaming....except I didn't.....I followed the wrong thread tail and since I was so intent on just ripping out the seam and getting it done I didn't notice that I had undone the side seaming instead..........I was really living my best life that day.......
All smiles now that it's finished! not pictured: tears from all the problems I had :S
The problems were certainly worth it though because the finished product is so comfy! I can see myself wearing this sweater a lot! I'm really glad that I made the decision to go down a size because the length in both the body and arms fit great, and the v-neck isn't too deep. This knit looked HUGE when it was done so I was really worried that it would just be too massive on me but it all worked out! #KnittingKarma
Given that I used an identical colour combo as the sample on the pattern I couldn't resist re-creating the photo.....#nailedit
I'm really feeling the 'nautical' theme recently....my other current favorite sweater is a RTW, navy with thin white stripe, wool hoodie that I got at the Icebreaker Sample sale (I can only afford Icebreaker when it's on sale!) I really don't know where this nautical crush is coming from.....*cough-@peacychartaylor I know you're reading this...this is your fault!-cough*
David Attenborough: Here we have a knitter in it's natural habitat....it's built a nest in the corrner of a couch with plenty of pillows....notice that they are wearing comfy slippers and a piece of knit ware it previously made....given the intricate lace it is knitting we do not need to worry about noises disturbing it....only the sound of tea being made could distract it now
I'm looking forward to many, many days of lounging about in this sweater....and doing more knitting!