Finished, and with 42″ of yarn to spare.
Although I did make the sleeves slightly narrower and slightly shorter, I was still surprised to find that I had quite a bit of yarn left over by the time I’d finished the collar to the same size as the first one. I had expected to either run out before finishing the collar, or at least be cutting it close. Since I still had a decent amount of yarn, I decided to wash and block the sweater, then decide if I wanted to use the excess yarn to make the sleeves slightly longer. But after it was dry and I tried it on, I decided the sleeves were fine (they actually ended up being the same length as the blue sweater’s sleeves, even though I knit them a few rows shorter).
The collar seemed to sit a bit lower on this sweater than the black one, so I decided to use the leftover yarn to make the collar the size that was specified in the pattern (10 repeats of the stitch pattern instead of 8). I couldn’t quite make it, though. I was halfway through the 10th repeat when I ran out of yarn. So I ripped it back to the end of the 9th repeat and bound off, then sewed the collar down. But when I sewed it down, I didn’t fold it completely in half, so there are actually 5 repeats of the stitch pattern showing on the outside of the collar, which makes it stand just a little taller than the collar on the blue sweater.
Pattern: Ingenue, from “Custom Knits”, by Wendy Bernard (Ravelry page)
Size: Small, but at a larger gauge than the pattern
Yarn: Vermont Organic Fiber Company’s O-Wool Classic (100% merino), color “Coal”, 4 skeins
Needles: US 8 for the body, US 9 for the ridge stitch at the hem and cuffs, and US 7 for the collar
Ravelry: Project page
Modifications: I pretty much made it the same way as my Blue one, with the exception of dividing the stitches differently for the front/back and sleeves – I allocated 18 stitches for each sleeve, and 42 for the front and back. That gave me a much better proportioned sleeve for my arms. I added 2 sets of short rows at the back neck, changed the waist shaping to fit me, and bound off the cuffs and hem purlwise instead of knitwise. And of course, knitted the collar last instead of first.
I think it’s a winner.
Cabled Sheep lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she enjoys knitting, cooking, and munching veggies out of the garden. She never tires of Utah's glorious landscape.
It looks fabulous!
This pattern has been in my queue since the book first came out — I *must* get around to knitting it this winter.
Gorgeous! It’s such a lovely pattern (I wear mine often), and I love yours in black.
Wow! Stunning!
Ingenue sure looked fabulous on you last night!!
Fantastic! Great job, and thanks for sharing.
Fahbulous, dahlink, simply fahbulous!
It’s fantastic!
And so much like the other one
Very pretty! Okay…if you can knit a black sweater then I will stop grumbling about the black yarn my mother picked for a lace scarf and bite the bullet and knit it!
Definitely a winner. I’m jealous of your good photographer. It helps of course that you are so great at posing and look so lovely.
It’s beautiful! So flattering.
This is truly beautiful. I just love the collar!
Definitely a winner. Good fit, good color!
Gorgeous!
And the sweater is nice, too.
I think this one is my favorite. It looks so great on you!
It looks fabulous on you. Definitely a winner. And enough yarn to play w/the collar? Bonus.