Fiber #46 // Paper Birds

My latest FO for you has been finished for awhile, the delay has been due to trying to track down my brother to photograph it for me (actually, I wore this outfit during May).  It combines 2 oft-found combinations on the Paper Dolls Ravelry page: a light gray with brown and red color combination, and swapping out the paper dolls chart for a bird stitch instead.

I used 5 repeats of the birdie pattern, which is a 62-stitch repeat ... which, apparently, is about 52 stitches too long a repeat to be knit up when watching Downton Abbey.  I had quite a few impromptu fix-its to make, not that this stopped me from plunging headily and recklessly through Season 2 regardless :-).

A number of knitters have observed that this sweater has very tight armholes, something I noticed in my first version despite holding extra underarm stitches and casting on for larger sleeves, and after making up this version I finally realized that, for me anyways, this is due in part to the fact that the yoke is too shallow, which yanks the entire sweater up and causes the armholes to feel unbearably tight (my coworker calls this Sweaty Pit Syndrome).  Perhaps this is due to the fact that my row gauge usually comes up short, but I suspect the pattern might also benefit from some extra rows before starting the chart.  If I make this again, and I have been scheming a third variation on this pattern, I need to add roughly 1" to the yoke depth to avoid SPS.

I love the way these sweaters look over a long-sleeved tee in fall and spring and warmer winter days, but I must confess that it also looks superb over a button down for the office.  I have this pale army green tee that I'm dying to pair this sweater with.

The crazy thing is that the yarn I chose for the body knits up at 30 stitches/4 inches, which is certainly smaller than the 26 st/4in that the pattern calls for ... which amounts to a ridiculous amount of extra stitching, but you know what?  I think I really like how sweaters knit up at that gauge move and act.  So ... there might be more of those in my future.  Maybe.  Unfortunately, that means that you all will just have to put up with more "in progress" shots and fewer "finished object" posts.

Anyways, hurrah for another FO!  It feels nice to slowly finish up projects that have lingered for way too long.  And now that summer weather may finally have landed in the Bay Area, I'm starting to think about dresses and lightweight blouses.  Maybe even something a little Sparkly?  Let's see if I can keep my act together!