At Rose City Yarn Crawl this year, I went to the Boss Kitty trunk show, and saw the most amazing mohair.
Neon green is my absolute favorite color, so I knew I had to make something out of this. I had already printed out the pattern for the Ivy Sweater by Petite Knit, and thought it would be a good choice. In a lot of her patterns, she holds a strand of mohair with her working yarn. I thought this pattern was one of them, but when I went to cast on, I realized that wasn’t the case.
For my base yarn, I used Cascade Yarns’ Friday Harbor in the color black. It’s a super soft wool and silk blend. When I first picked it up in the store, I thought it was an uber-soft cotton. It was the perfect non-fussy base to use with the temperamental mohair.
I was able to get gauge with one strand of mohair, my worsted yarn, and the needle size she recommended. My fabric was fairly structured, probably because of the added bulk of the mohair. I like that kind of fabric, but if you wanted something drapier, I would probably recommend not holding a mohair with the worsted, but your mileage may vary.
For my measurements, (bust 39 ¾) I made a size 5. I usually like my tops to be fairly form-fitting and I had to keep reminding myself that I was intentionally making something with a loose boxy fit.
When I tried on the top to test the body length, I almost frogged the whole project. I sent truly incredibly blurry photos to a friend—and former yarn-store co-worker—of mine. She was able to talk me off the frogging ledge, and reminded me that blocking fixes all sins.
See? I told you they were so blurry. I have a smart phone for taking blog-post pictures, but I use a flip phone in my day-to-day.
My main problem was the hemline. It sat where I wanted it to sit, but it was bunching up in an unflattering way. In addition to that, the hem was supposed to roll, which I liked, but it was rolling too much, which I didn’t like.
This stage of the process is also when I decided that I wasn’t going to do full-length sleeves. This has less to do with aesthetics and more to do with how hot I get in knit sweaters. This thing was already warm. Adding full sleeves would probably have me melting like the wicked witch.
One important thing to note. Fashion rules say that the sleeve hemline and the body hemline should be at different heights. This helps a finished garment not look super boxy, and also gives it some visual interest. When I decided to shorten the sleeves, I wanted to make sure I followed that rule. I chose a sleeve length that ended right above my elbow. It gave me more than a t-shirt, but less than a full sweater. Most importantly – that length wouldn’t chafe against my inner elbow.
After that, it was pretty much done! The only thing left to do was to weave in the ends and block it. I took pictures of the fit before blocking.
How I pinned it for blocking.
And….the fit after!
Honestly, I don’t love the fit.
It looks fine from some angles, but from other angles it drapes in a way that I’m not crazy about.
I’m thinking of some ways that I can cinch the waist in, maybe with some Chinese knots or a metal buckle situation. I love the feel and look of the fabric, so I’m definitely not giving up on this shirt, but I think I can add something that will improve the fit.
I’ll report back on the results!
