One Last Summer Sweater

  Cascade, by Marie Wallin

• made of Rowan Silkystones yarn, 52% silk, 48% linen, color Grassland, 10 skeins used though the pattern asked for 9 (more about this later)
• US size 5 needle (pattern calls for a 6)
• Size M (designed for 36-38 bust, for a 46" garment (!!)
• On Ravelry

 I actually fell in love with this yarn first, when I saw this picture in a magazine:

But this sweater is crocheted, and I don't crochet (much), and didn't think this much crochet, with such a textured yarn (and oh, I did love the color and texture of that yarn) was a good idea for my first project.

But when I looked at the Silkstones pattern book on the Rowan site,  I decided it would be worth a try to make Cascade, a lacy KNIT sweater with a similar shape.

Working with this crunchy (it washes out to a softer, drapier garment, but the knitting was definitely crunchy) yarn wasn't too difficult, but estimating size and gauge was tricky.  I did wash and dry my swatch, and used those measurements to knit to a certain number of rows, rather than the centimeters specified in the pattern.  It was a good that I did, or my very oversized sweater would have been HUGE!


Before blocking
And after -- just smoothed, not stretched.



The first time I tried on the sweater, it looked like this:


Too oversized!

I didn't really want to reknit - so I did some pulling and pinning and finally decided to take about an inch and half off the top of the sweater -- this lifted the neckline, and made the sleeves smaller.  Still perhaps not ideal, but certainly an improvement. (Compare with the photo at top.)  And as to needing the extra skein of yarn,  maybe with tighter gauge or a smaller size, 9 would have been fine.  The next smaller size called for 8 skeins, I think. 

This sweater illustrates a problem we knitters (and seamstresses too) can have - we (usually) don't get to try on garments for size and style before we put hours into making them.  I knew at the outset that this might be an iffy style for me.  I am not a waif-like 19 year old model for Rowan, who wanders listlessly on the Spanish coast.  So, time will tell if this sweater really works in my wardrobe, for my body.

But in the meantime, there's this rustic lace.


Which I know I love.