Central Park

Are you sick of looking at it yet?

Yarn: Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran, Thorny colorway (about 8 balls, I think)
Pattern: Central Park Hoodie, Interweave Knitscene

Modifications:

1) I made the body 1 inch longer than the pattern called for. I don't have a particularly long torso, I just like my sweaters to hit a bit lower on my hip.

2) I lengthened the cable pattern; I thought the cables looked a little squished with only 8 stockinette rows in between crossovers, so I upped it to 10 rows.

3) Because of (2), I had to cut out two of the decrease rows in the hood so that the cable patterns would still match up at the seam on top of the hood. This made the hood a little pointier, and 1/8 inch shorter, but it doesn't matter much to me because I will probably never actually wear the hood on my head anyway.

4) I slipped all the edge stitches to make seaming easier. This maybe doesn't even really count as a modification, as I think most knitters usually do this. Or, they get smart and knit the front & back as one piece, and the sleeves in the round, to eliminate most of the seams altogether. I wish I had had the foresight to do this, since the tweed yarn was absolutely useless for seaming--it broke every ten seconds. I finally gave up and used some leftover brown acrylic yarn instead. It worked fine, except now I can never let anyone see the private side of this sweater because, heavens to Betsy, YOU CAN SEE MISMATCHING YARN BITS IN THERE!!! Oh, the horror.

5) I joined the top of the hood with a three-needle bind-off, instead of binding all the stitches flat and then seaming them together (because, by this point, I had had quite enough of the mattress stitch, thankyouverymuch).

Comments:

The yarn is a little bit itchy on my arms, but it's tolerable. I am completely enamored of its tweedy tweedyness. Also, I love the buttons; I know they're kind of ordinary, but the color of the wood just seems to go perfectly with the sweater, and they're just the right size. Maybe I just like them so much because I actually did a decent job of spacing them out evenly, for once.

For blocking, I lightly steamed all the pieces individually, just enough to make it easier to see my seam stitches when sewing them all together. Then, after the hood and edging was done, I just steam-ironed the crap out of the entire sweater. I was particularly brutal on the seams and cables, because I like it when those lie nice & flat. You are now maybe recoiling in horror at the thought of me assaulting my wool sweater with a scorching, steaming clothes iron, but it works! (Except for the part where you steam over your buttons and they leave little brown wood-stain circles all over your ironing board. Small sacrifices, that's all.)

I'm happy that this cardigan has more of a shrunken fit (I like my clothes to be on the snug side), and unlike most of the other sweaters I've made, I think this one might actually see the light of day more than once or twice.