fo: Daelyn Pullover (aka Accidental Sweater)

Please allow me to introduce one of my new favourite garments, my Daelyn Pullover aka the Accidental Sweater.  I've been teasing you about this one for a while - I finished it on May 1, it was dry by May 3, took pictures the following weekend and worn it a bunch of times, and am only now getting around to blogging about it.  There's a ton of photos here because I'm in love and I couldn't weed them out.  No regrets.

Pattern: Daelyn Pullover, by Isabell Kraemer
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca
Needles: 4 mm and 4.5 mm
Size: 38.5" at neckline, grading to 41" at the bust with a bit of extra stitches here and there
My Ravelry Project Page

I'm so excited to have finally knit one of Isabell Kraemer's patterns.  That woman creates some of the most gorgeous sweaters, and I need to make more.  The pattern itself was relatively easy (other than the short rows at the neck, which nearly defeated me), and it was just so lovely to knit.

I'm particularly pleased about the fit of this sweater.  Raglan sleeves can be difficult with a larger bust - since pattern designers just have you keep doing raglan increases until you get the bust width you need, but often the armpits wind up closer to you waistline than your armpit.  Annoying.  There's a mod I usually use to help alleviate this, but it sort of worked/sort of failed this time.  More on that later.

Anyways, this pattern seems to avoid some of the pitfalls of a larger size raglan sweater, though I'm not sure if I can put my finger on the why just yet.  It might have something to do with the

I only did two mods on this sweater, and the first worked out really well.  This is supposed to be a boxy sweater, but boxy doesn't always work so well on me.  Especially with a snugger waistband.  I have a prominent butt, which tends to cause fabric to pool at the small of my back.  To eliminate that, I added two darts to the back of the sweater about 1/3 of the way from each side.  See how it shapes the back nicely?

It's so hard to see the darts with the garter stitch though.  I marked the location on the left side, and tried to point it out on the right with an arrow.  Can you see them?

Yeah, I barely can.  It sure does make a nice smooth and shaped back though.  The front is still boxy (maybe too boxy) but the back is just lovely.

The second mod was to add some width at the bust without having to continue the raglan increases, and I did that by casting on more stitches at the sleeve divide.  I've done this before, and it usually works out.  In this case, it didn't so much.  Oh, it gave me the width I needed for the bust, but it also gave me way too much fabric in the whole area.  See how the fabric gets pushed away from the underarm area when my arms are down?  Classic example of too much fabric at the bottom of the arm scyth (?? I'm too lazy to look up the spelling here).

See what it does to the front?  I get these big folds of excess fabric in front of the armpit.  Oops.  Ah well, I don't actually care.  Live and learn.

One of the little details I love in this pattern is how it has you do the finishing.  All ribbing ends with a row of knit stitches, then bound off knit-wise.  That leaves this pretty straight line of stitches at the end of the ribbing, like on the sleeves above.  It's a pretty little detail that I'm in love with.

The pattern also has you do some short rows at the back of the sweater before starting the ribbing (you can see how the ridges are truncated by the ribbing along the right side).  This is to give a bit more length at the back, since garter stitch tends to be shorter than stockinette.

Man, I just love the simplicity of this sweater.  Really makes the contrasting texture of the garter stitch (ridgey bit) and stockinette stitch (flat bit), and the lovely heathered yarn, sing.

I think the only thing that I'm not pleased with this sweater (other than all that extra fabric above the bust, but that's not the patterns fault at all) is how high the neckline is.  I'm not used to necklines this high, so I find it a bit...constricting? against my throat.  But it's not too bad, and I'll just keep that in mind for the next sweater.  I think this pattern would look really good with a v-neck though, and I might have to consider knitting this pattern again in the future with that mod!

And I'm hauling it along with us to Haines Alaska this weekend.  Which we're leaving for in...1 hour and I still have to pack and shower and figure out what knitting I'm bringing.  We have tickets to beer fest there (YAY!!), and you never know if you'll need a cozy warm woolen sweater while adventuring/sampling all the beer!