Spring time Lily

Spring has come! I managed to hold off starting anything new until I finished my Lily sweater. I convinced myself that if I knit it and nothing else that I would have a chance to wear it this spring. Its still early enough here that we could have some weather that would warrant wearing this all day. But, I hope not for too much longer.

(Sorry for the focus. I’ll have to have a good sit down with my “big girl camera” and figure out how to get it to focus on me instead of the trees behind me.)

This was experiment #2 in very little ease. I calculate it to be zero ease around the bust line. Its a bit modified though it should be hard to tell from the pictures. I’m tallish, so I added an inch below the armpits by adding rows to the decrease/increase instructions (it has waist fitting). The sleeves took a bit more tinkering. Initially, I applied a similar lengthening method to the sleeves, but the first one came out too short and too tight. I modified them further by adding 6 stitches to the entire width and as well as a repeat of the lace pattern. When I got to the yoke, I modified the sleeve decreases on the sleeve side to decrease down to the pattern’s original number of neckline stitches over the original number of rows (basically I decreased faster).

Though, I have many Twist Collective patterns in the queue this is the first I’ve knit (as well as the first by designer Marnie MacLean). I found this very clearly written which helped with the modifications. As someone who has knit for a very long time (30 years!) and has improvised my own patterns, I enjoyed following this one. Sometimes, I’ll use/buy a pattern because I don’t want to do the maths myself and sometimes I buy a pattern because it looks interesting. This was the later case. I’ve done bottom-up raglan sweaters before, even with my own maths, and this one was different. It was a good read, so to speak.

I’m also very pleased with the yarn. It handspun--2 plies of handpainted targhee from Hello Yarn and one ply of fawn colored alpaca from Hidden View Alpacas. It is elastic and so soft.