FO: Driven

Pattern: Drivenby Veera Välimäki
Yarn: MadelineTosh Vintage
Ravelry project page





Pattern Modifications:

Managed to finish in spite of the fact that I somehow lost almost an entire skein’s worth of this yarn. I have no idea where it is. But the final sweater weighs 442g (each skein is 110g and I bought 5 - I even tracked down my receipt to make sure I am not crazy), plus I’ve got another 15g or so in swatches. So, roughly 93 missing grams of yarn. I made it one inch shorter than the pattern called for, but got that length back in blocking. Also did one additional decrease on the sleeves.

I re-did the collar about 3 times. Finally ended up casting on not-provisionally (just used a regular long-tail cast-on) and picking up stitches in the base of the first row of sts on the other side (not in the cast-on, but through the center of every stitch of the first row - in the center of the v’s on the stst sts and in the back side of the v’s on the rev stst sts; it's a bit lower down than you'd normally pick up sts from a co edge), so that the two sides of the collar would line up exactly (if you pick up provisional stitches, or if you pick up in the cast-on edge of a long-tail cast-on, you end up with a half stitch off-set, and I’m too OCD for that to be ok).

Also, once I picked up sts for the body I continued to slip the knit sts on the RS of the garment (purling them on the WS) to maintain the effect.


Notes:

I’ve had this yarn for MONTHS upon months. Okay, I know that's not really all that long in terms of stashing, but I’ve actually knit an entire sweater out of it, which I then frogged. And then I knit 1/3 of ANOTHER sweater with it, which I then frogged. And after learning from those mistakes, I FINALLY found the just-right pattern for this amazing and wonderful yarn. The main problem with both of those sweaters was gauge - this yarn is a lofty and somewhat stiff aran-weight, and wants to be knit on 10's.

Unfortunately, this pattern is sort of a mess. It’s really unclear and difficult to follow and not very well written. I’m guessing it’s a language barrier issue. But it’s a beautiful garment, and if you can read through the poorly-written pattern, and figure out what it’s trying to tell you, then you get a lovely garment.

I wish the sleeves were an inch longer (if only I'd not lost so much of the yarn - though I may cannibalize the swatch to get an extra cm or so on each sleeve), and I wish the collar didn't roll quite so much, but otherwise I absolutely LOVE this jacket.