My, what a pretty sweater!

Today, I finished (or nearly so) this beautiful sweater:

The sweater is the February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne, an adaptation of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s February Baby Sweater from the Knitter’s Almanac.

Still left to do are washing and blocking and finding and sewing on some buttons. I have 4 buttonholes ready for some pretty 1″ wide buttons. On the front view above, you can see the purple button band. The original pattern has you knit the button band as you go, but I left it off and knitted it on all at once, after the sweater was done. If I had done it as I went, the button band would have been the same color as the surrounding yarns, and would have changed as the sweater progressed. I feel the single-color band looks more finished and frames my neck and face better.

The yarn is Malabrigo Sock yarn for the top section, and Araucania Multy sock yarn for the lacy sleeves and bottom. Both sock yarns were doubled, with 2 strands held together to make a thicker “strand” of yarn. The gradient effect on the top is achieved by starting with 2 strands of yellow, then switching to 1 each of yellow and orange, then 2 of orange, etc. This gives a graded look instead of sharp, horizontal stripes (which nobody needs).

From the side, you can see the short row shaping on the bust– that’s why the purple is so much fuller over the bust area than in the back. These short rows give room in the front for my bustline, and make it so the front of my sweater is the same length as the back of my sweater. If you constantly find yourself tugging down the front of a shirt, or having to buy a size larger so your shirt won’t ride up, a short row bust is for you.

I used a size 7 needle throughout, except the bind off edge on the button bands, where I used a 10 1/2 needle to give a lot of stretch to the edge there.

The whole sweater is very pretty and comfy, and I’ll admit, it has a little bit of a hippy feel to it. But I don’t care– I rather like it, quite a lot!