Knit 4 Victory, sort of

Today is the last day for the Knit 4 Victory challenge.  I don’t think the project I’m sharing today qualifies for the challenge, as it is a modern, top-down raglan.  Extra points if you guessed it was another St. James sweater.  I really intended to knit up one of my many vintage patterns.  I started 2, with disasterous results.

My first project was a burgundy blouse with grey stripes and cute little bows on each stripe.  Not only did it come out too small, as result of knitting my gauge swatch flat and the blouse in-the-round, but I messed up my math and the sleeve cap came out way too small for the armscye.  I really wish I was better as rewritting patterns for size.

Project 2 was a black pullover with a pink yoke that had black intarsia bows.  I didn’t occur to me that the written intarsia would be a problem, with regards to changing their placement to fit my different gauge and upperchest measurement.  Last week, a knitter friend suggested that I make my own chart so it would be easier to visualize the placement.  After frogging and knitting the same 4 rows of intarsia a few times, hearing her tell me that made me want to cry.  Yes, I should have done that before casting on.  Now, it sits on my coffee table, taunting me.

So, after all the knitting failures, I decided to knit up something I know fits and is easy.  The yarn is Brava worsted, http://www.knitpicks.com/’s new 100% acrylic yarn.  As a wool allergic knitter, it’s hard to find high quality non-wool yarns in beautiful colors.  I usually stick to http://www.knitpicks.com/ Comfy line, which is 75% cotton/25% acrylic because it comes in a wide variety of weights and colors, but I fell in love with this lovely dark green color.  I bought this over the summer, but didn’t knit it because in the skein, the color isn’t nearly as pretty.  After knitting about an inch, the color really started to show.  For this version of St James, I went down a size, because of the recent weight loss and because this yarn is very stretchy.  I also decided to omit the ties at the neck for a more classic look.  Other than that, it fits great without changes to the pattern.

green St. James