{"id":8830,"date":"2017-04-30T22:07:58","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T03:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/?p=8830"},"modified":"2017-04-30T22:11:33","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T03:11:33","slug":"the-perfect-sweater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/?p=8830","title":{"rendered":"The Perfect Sweater."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four Score and Seven Years ago, The Husband and I were watching Wedding Daze starring Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher. During a scene featuring Isla in a cozy green seater, the man that rarely admires knitwear said, &#8220;That&#8217;s a nice sweater.&#8221; So, we rewound, I got a good look at it and said, &#8220;I could totally knit that. It&#8217;s a little plain so I&#8217;d want some cables or something.&#8221; a pause and I added with a smile, &#8220;You do realize the sweater will not turn me into Isla Fisher, yes?&#8221; He responded with a laughing, &#8220;Yes.&#8221;<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Isla_Fisher.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"344\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8831\" \/><br \/>\n<\/br>I selected several less boring shawl neck sweater patterns and The Husband voted for his favorite. We had a winner, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ravelry.com\/patterns\/library\/dark-and-stormy\" target=\"_blank\">Dark and Stormy by Thea Colman<\/a>. I immediately started yarn shopping and discovered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yarn.com\/products\/valley-yarns-northampton?color=23%20Dark%20Green%20Heather\" target=\"_blank\">Valley Yarns Northampton<\/a>. I wasn&#8217;t sure which green I liked best, so The Husband picked Dark Green Heather. I wasn&#8217;t 100% sure of the shade; online it looked like it had a bit of an orange haze, but when it arrived in the mail, I dug it. The Husband&#8217;s most convincing argument was that he looks at me more frequently than I look at me, so he is a better judge of what color will look good on me. He wasn&#8217;t wrong.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_2933small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8843\" \/><br \/>\nI knit a gauge, washed it (It&#8217;s like I don&#8217;t even know who I am anymore.) and  cast on.  It was too tight. So, I cast on again, knit a few rows, and stopped. To give you an idea of my headspace, I was a little gun-shy. After knitting my Owls sweater and not loving the fit &#8211; the cast on edge is too tight and it&#8217;s just a little too form fitting for my liking. So, I sat on this barely started sweater for a year.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_2932small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8842\" \/><br \/>\nFinally, the Iknitarod gave me the motivation I needed. I resolved that the worst that could happen is I end up with 6 balls of yarn. Ok, the WORST thing that could happen is that I end up crying on a pile of sweater bits with scissors in hand, but that&#8217;s probably not how this will go down. probably.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_2931small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8841\" \/><br \/>\nThe odds of me ending up with 6 balls of yarn increased when a week into the sweater, i read a comment on ravelry, &#8220;This is not a great pattern for your first cardigan.&#8221; Um&#8230;.. I kept going. As long as I read the pattern and trusted Thea and the 1500+ knitters that have gone before me, things seemed to go according to plan.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_2930small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8840\" \/><br \/>\nI made mine a little roomier than designed because I was looking for a cozy house sweater. The only issue I had was one arm being slightly longer than the other prior to blocking. Analysis has revealed that switching from magic loop to DPN&#8217;s halfway down the first sleeve will lead to a change in gauge. This did, in fact, block right out.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_2929small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8839\" \/><br \/>\nPattern: Dark and Stormy by Thea Colman (I will absolutely be knitting another Thea pattern.)<br \/>\nNeedles: Addi Clicks &#8211; size  US 7<br \/>\nYarn: Valley Yarns Northampton<br \/>\nColorway: Dark Green Heather<br \/>\nSize: 38<br \/>\nYarn Used: 529g<br \/>\nMods:<br \/>\nCast on 6 for underarms (I&#8217;ve got biceps like a Viking shieldmaiden and don&#8217;t like tight sleeves.)<br \/>\n.<br \/>\nPicked up 8 to start sleeves to avoid holes.<br \/>\nKnit a round.<br \/>\nDecreased 2 stitches<br \/>\nKnit a round.<br \/>\nDecreased 2 stitches<br \/>\nthen followed pattern.<br \/>\nMy sleeves ended up just a tad long, and i like it.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_2927small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8837\" \/><br \/>\nI spent an entire Saturday night looking at buttons online and settled on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lotsofbuttons.com\/en\/products\/umb-m0078-44l\" target=\"_blank\">these 1 inch beauties<\/a>.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_2935small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8845\" \/><br \/>\nOverall: This was quite the enjoyable knit and I LOVE my sweater! Beautiful readers, I may be a sweater knitter after all. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four Score and Seven Years ago, The Husband and I were watching Wedding Daze starring Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher. During a scene featuring Isla in a cozy green seater, the man that rarely admires knitwear said, &#8220;That&#8217;s a nice sweater.&#8221; So, we rewound, I got a good look at it and said, &#8220;I could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[445,476,477,446,478,462,395,451,449,12,444,448],"class_list":["post-8830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-knitting","tag-babycocktails","tag-dark-stormy","tag-dark-and-stormy","tag-dark-and-stormy-sweater","tag-green-sweater","tag-hand-knitting","tag-handknit","tag-handknit-sweater","tag-northampton-yarn","tag-ravelry","tag-thea-colman","tag-valley-yarns"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8830"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8873,"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830\/revisions\/8873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metzroth.com\/katie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}