Start to Finish: Pomme de Pin

 My Pomme de Pin cardigan is finished!!! Yesterday morning I bound off the buttonband and yesterday afternoon I sewed on buttons. This cardigan turned out better than I imagined it would - the length is perfect, the sleeves hit just where I want them, and I'm absolutely positive I'll get a ton of wear out of it. 

Let's talk stats!

I started this project January 5th and bound off February 1st. Three weeks for a sport weight sweater isn't too shabby and I used stash yarn and library pattern stash to knit this up -that meets two of my goals for 2014. I was a little worried about having a couple of inches of positive ease built into the sweater but I don't feel like it necessarily translated into the finished garment. My yarn isn't superwash so it didn't do that melty opening-up thing that superwash yarns usually do, but it's totally fine with me. I did a slightly rough block on the sweater after setting in the sleeves and before picking up the button band - a more thorough block after the first wear will open up the lace a little more and smooth out the button band.

Pattern: Pomme de Pin by Amy Christoffers

Yarn: Valley Yarns Northampton Sport in Ocean Heather

Needles: US #6 (4 mm) & US #5 (3.75 mm) Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

Mods: I knit the sleeves two at a time until the sleeve caps and then knit them one at a time. The sleeves are shorter - only 17 inches instead of 19 - and I did 20 rounds of ribbing at the cuff. I used 1394 yards and the pattern called for 1400 yards. I think if I had decided to knit the sleeves as long as the pattern indicated I would have run out of yarn instead of having about half a skein left over. Phew! 

I hope you liked my Start to Finish series! I found it pretty rewarding to think more in-depth about my decision-making process regarding sweater knitting and how that translates to a finished garment that I'm happy with. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm planning on doing another one later in the year. Thank you for following along!