Bitten by the bug

I'm woefully behind on posting some of my FO's this fall so I'm going to try to catch up before the end of the year. Yikes, that's less than 2 weeks away isn't it!!
First up... my "End of October" sweater.

Shortly after Jen cast on the February Lady Sweater I realized that I wanted to make one too. Yup, Jennygirl, me and 3000+ other ravelers have been bitten by the FLS bug.
So I cast on sometime in September and finished it the end of October. I really wanted to come up with some nice, natural light pictures with some pretty fall scenery as a backdrop but I never found the right time. Finally one evening when I got home from work I coerced my son into taking a couple of quick shots. Not exactly our best work but you get the idea... and Winston looked good anyway. He's very photogenic though he didn't make the cut here on the blog. Sorry Winston. I'll have to be sure to give kitty some blog time next post.



Pattern: February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne based on the Elizabeth Zimmerman baby sweater
Yarn: Paton's Classic Wool Merino in a dark heather gray. I used about 4 1/2 skeins.
Needles: US 8

I really enjoyed knitting this sweater. And I love wearing it!! I’ve gotten several compliments on it. The Paton's merino is very soft and cozy to wear. And it took several froggings and held up well.

I got off to a slow start. I had to rip back a few times; for some reason I had trouble with my stitch count on the yoke and then once I got that under control I decided to make some sizing modifications as well.
Now I had read some of the comments on ravelry about sizing, most of the knitters seem to feel the sweater ran a little large. So when choosing the size to knit I debated between the medium and the large. But this was not long after the green cardigan denial disaster so I went with the large.
The first time I tried it on I thought it was a little big but I kept knitting. Then about 4-5 inches into the lace pattern I tried it on again and this time I was really worried that after blocking the lace was going to widen up the body of the sweater more than I wanted. So I decided to rip back, again. This was probably rip #3 or 4. I took it back to a point in the yoke where I had the correct number of stitches for a medium and just continued knitting. And I’m glad I did. It fits just about how I wanted it to after blocking.


I even found buttons I love!! You can't really tell from the picture but they are really nice buttons, they pick up whatever color they're paired with. But who would have guessed... the buttons cost almost as much as the wool.

Happy knitting!!