WIP: Serif

Every January 1st I drag all of my stash out of hiding and sort through it and organize it. It takes half the day to do a proper job and put it all away, nice and tidy. Throughout the sorting process I'll cull a few yarns to destash and a few yarns to knit right away, but most of it goes back into my cedar chest or large space bags. This year, I was particularly taken with inventorying my sweater quantities of yarn and I set aside some Quince & Co Lark and Chickadee that I purchased last October.

I'm knitting Serif from Elizabeth Doherty's book, Top Down, in colors Honey and Storm. My gauge swatch was spot on for row gauge, which is super duper important for top down knitting, but off on stitch gauge. However, I really liked the fabric I got on US #8 (4.5 mm) needles and didn't want to sacrifice my perfect row gauge for a better stitch gauge. Turns out I just needed to knit one size up to get the correct width measurements while following the length measurements for the size I originally intended to knit - 42-ish for length and 45-ish for width. 

It just so happened that I was ill last weekend so I spent a lot of time laying in bed while knitting and watching movies so I got a ton of this sweater knit. A lot as in most of the body. As of last night I joined the contrast color for the skirt and am knitting merrily along in garter stitch. My goal for today is to get through the garter stitch portion of the body so I can get to the sleeves. I'm usually not too keen on Sleeve Island but I'm eager to try Elizabeth's method of top down sleeve construction again (I knit a sample for her book) and to get a real feel for the fit of the sweater. I'm almost always a bit "meh" about sweaters until they get at least one sleeve because it really changes the way they fit the body; drawing the armhole closer to where they actually sit during wearing and allowing any stockinette to unroll and lay properly.

I've also looked through my wardrobe to see if this sweater fits criteria for filling a hole in my wardrobe and it certainly does! I have two dresses that should look fantastic with this cardigan not to mention a pair of slim cut navy pants that will look super cute with this sweater and a patterned top. Not too shabby for meeting my handmade wardrobe goal for this year!