Reed's Red Leaves

Don't fall over now but I've finished something and it's not a sock or a kippah. Are you shocked?

I should've had this sweater done a long time ago but, apparently my mojo wasn't quite fired up yet when I started it and I could not get a flow going with that leaf lace panel. I picked it up and put it down a zillion times. I finally decided about a week ago that I really needed to concentrate on getting it done so I worked on it a bit every night and now it's done. Yay!

The knitting was just fine on this sweater. It's a very nice pattern full of nifty stuff like the leaf detail tucked into the rib. Surprisingly, the aspect of this sweater that makes me smile most is the finishing. Instead of winging it as usual, I took out my copy of The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques by Nancie Wiseman and actually read what it said about seams. What a difference it makes when you do a thing correctly. So pretty and neat! I'm not going to think about what this means about sweaters I made in the past. Look to the future and the positive implications!

It wasn't all smiles with this sweater. One of the more obvious problems was a forgotten buttonhole at the neck. I'm not sure if it was the instructions or knitter error - I suspect the latter. Anyway, I fixed this by adding an offset button and a little crochet loop. Unfortunately I suck at sewing on buttons (ok, sewing in general) and the placement on the placket is not nearly as straight as it ought to be and don't look at the wrong side because it's just not pretty. It's a shame because the rest of the sweater is lovely.

Of course the yarn has a lot to do with the appearance of this sweater. I used KP Cotlin which is a cotton linen blend because this is going to California and wool didn't seem nearly as useful out there. I love the color of this yarn. It's called Moroccan Red and it's a rich, deep red that is warm and just wonderful. Knitting with this yarn was very pleasant and it behaved perfectly. Then came the seaming and I had a bit of trial and error. While pulling out a row of stitches along a seam this stuff shredded like nothing I've ever seen. It was ugly in the extreme. On the positive side, I had plenty left over so I just discarded the shredded bits and cut a new piece but I will keep this in mind in the future.

I'll block this out a little tonight and get a little gift for the big brother and away this will go. I hope they like it... and it still fits.