Apricot Jacket

{ Thursday, September 18, 2008 }
When I first saw this sweater at Skinny Rabbit way back in 2004, I fell in love with it. I love the girly eyelet details and the figure flattering ribbing, but at that time I didn't feel like my skills were up to the challenge, especially since the pattern is originally written in German and the English translation is rumored to be difficult to follow.

Four years later, I was still longing after this pattern. There are so many beautiful finished sweaters on ravelry (Ravelry link) and I finally felt up to the challenge. I found an ebay seller who had the pattern and took advantage of extensive googling and ravelry searching for tips.

Of course, I didn't get gauge with the yarn I chose so I had to rework all of the stitch counts. While I was at it (and since that wasn't enough work already), I decided to adjust all the sizing to end up with a sweater an inch or two smaller than the smallest size. I started with the back and it did look small. Blocking helped . . . a little.

I always get to this point in a project and begin to stress about the fit. Up until now, I've always calmed my nerves by making everything a little bit bigger as insurance. (I've also made a bunch of huge sweaters.) Mr. Greenjeans was my first sweater that really fit and, since it was top-down, I was able to try it on as I went. But this? I have no idea. I'm trying to trust my tape measure and just press on.
But these are not sleeves, people. These are the two fronts. These are supposed to cover my chest! Maybe blocking will help?

3 comments:

Jesse said...

ROFL! I was like wow.. those sleeves look so symmetrical!

One way to look at it is that you can learn from the mistakes and start over, right?

Nice color choice, btw! Is it carob chip? ROFLMAO!!!

It is a very cool pattern, I can see why you wanted to make it.

Jesse said...

oooh i forgot to tell you the new layout looks nice!

Landlady of Fat said...

Well if it those two halves don't come together all the way I'm sure JR won't mind.

;)

Nice layout! :)