Not Marsala

is finally done.

So light, so fluffy, so soft, so delicate.

Knit top down, beginning with a clean tubular cast-on.

I designed a shoulder increase sequence based upon the one in asimmetrie.  It's a hybrid of a raglan and saddle shoulder that works well with my build.

• When the sweater is laid out flat, you can see that the increases start out at a rapid rate with increases on both the sleeve and body sections every other row.  (20 rows)
• The the body increases slow to every 4th row while the sleeve stitches continue to grow every other row.  The sleeve section needs to grow rapidly to cover the shoulder without straining.  If they body grew at the same rate here, there would be too much fabric across the chest and upper back.  (20 rows)
• After you reach the tip of your shoulder, slow the sleeve increases to every 4th row while speeding the body increases to every other row.  The body stitches need to grow rapidly to go around to the side.  If you increase the sleeve every other row here, you end up with the dreaded raglan puffy sleeve.  (16-20 rows to reach your desired armhole depth)

I didn't pay attention to gauge.  I just tried the sweater on as I knit, but it is roughly a 5x7 light worsted or DK gauge.

This sweater was inspired by a $300 boutique sweater that alternated heavy and thin yarn tonal stripes.  As much as I liked it, I thought it would be more frugal and personal to make something with the collection of yarns already in my home.

I found a remnant cone of Art Fibers Alfabeto in a perfect rosy-plum color, but it was < 250 yds and way too light.  Amazingly, I didn't have anything suitable to pair with it.

Fortunately, Twist's proprietress, Cathy, hand-dyed a silk/merino lace yarn in a perfect colorway.  It made the perfect carry-along yarn for the solid stripes; I used it solo for the sheer sections.

Alfabeto is discontinued and Art Fibers went out of business.  I needed something similar to Alfabeto for the solid sections.  Nothing was quite the right color, a skein of Malabrigo merino lace sufficed.  It's soft, but I wish the light flecks were not so light.  It looks fine IRL, but really pops in photographs.

The ribbed sections need a study yarn like Madelinetosh tosh sport, a hand-dyed superwash merino wool.

If you did the math, you know this was not a frugal sweater.  ;-)

I have no regrets about that.  All of the yarns are high quality and were a pleasure to work with.  The sweater looks and feels great.  I look forward to wearing this with joy.

Links:

WIP pictures
Raveled