Friday, January 9, 2009

Corona

First FO of 2009!

I really can't say enough about this sweater pattern. It was easy-to-follow, fun-to-knit, and created the cutest sweater I may ever own.

Pattern: Corona
Size:34" (at slightly larger gauge)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Charcoal Gray, 5 skeins
Needles: Knit Picks Options size 9

I didn't make any mods to the pattern other than knitting the entire sweater at a slightly larger gauge.

I bought yarn for the 34" size and then decided that for a hoodie I wanted a looser fit than the 5" of neg ease in the pattern. So, thinking that knitting the 34" size at a larger gauge would allow me to use the same quantity of yarn and still make a larger sweater I went with that instead knitting the next size up.

Well, it worked well, but I did get very close to running out of yarn, so I had to make the hood a few inches shorter...

I had decided earlier to add an extra 1 1/2 inches to the body length, but it turned out that the sweater would have been long enough even without the extra, so I would have had enough yarn for the hood had I avoided that mod. Go figure.
I used a three-needle bind off for the hood, shown here:

I loved the construction as well, raglans are a lot of fun to knit. This went really fast too, I felt almost a little guilty with how fast I was knitting it. It's like eating ice cream and watching a movie, all of a sudden the ice cream is gone and I can hardly remember eating it!

I'm already envisioning a Corona II, if I knit another one, I think I'll exchange the cable pattern and work in a different yarn, maybe a tweed or the suggested Dream in Color Classy for a completely different sweater.

While knitting Corona, I also made a couple of, ahem, large-ish mistakes.

1. Cable pattern- knit the same row twice and didn't notice until I was over two inches past it. I don't think you can really tell though (in fact, it didn't even come out in the photos)...

2. Attached one sleeve off center so that the increases in rib fall on the front/side of the sleeve instead of underneath the arm where the other sleeve's fall. This one bothers me a little more than the cable thing, but again I was so far past the point of the error that frogging back just seemed...impossible.


Of course, I also have to mention the Knit Picks Options. My first time knitting with my Christmas options set and I love them!

Being able to switch the needle tips out with the endcaps was wonderful. I saved so much time I might have otherwise spent moving sts back and forth between yarn stitch holders.

Next on the agenda:

Finishing up my Mom's socks, which have been grossly neglected.

Mittens: I seriously need something more substantial than the fingerless gloves I've been wearing, and being a Knitter, I refuse to simply buy a pair of mittens.

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

Beautiful! What a great sweater.

misplacedpom said...

Great sweater and it looks fabulous on you! I might have to add this one to my queue :o)

I hear you on the mitten thing. I've been making do with a pair of fetchings for three winters now, and lets face it, they just aren't warm enough! I'm about half way through a new pair for myself but am flagging on the motivation to finish them up. I did think I'd lost one of the fetchings yesterday which might have been the motivation I needed had I not found it again this morning :o/

Celestial said...

"I seriously need something more substantial than the fingerless gloves I've been wearing, and being a Knitter, I refuse to simply buy a pair of mittens."

I'm doing the exact same thing!

I've been using Toast since October and while I have yarn for new mittens I have neither the perfect pattern nor the time to make them. And I also refuse to buy a pair when I already have the yarn.

Ironically when I finally gave in and dug out my buried AE mittens from college I, of course, only found one.

Teresa said...

I really like it! It turned out lovely. Thanks :)