TripleL Tweed Sweater (2009)

Pattern: My own creation! See notes, below.

Yarn: Rowan Cocoon, (approx 1,500m all told)
Method: Hybrid machine & hand knitting
Completed: December 28 2009.

This sweater was designed and knit in components. I machine knit the main parts of back, front & sleeves (see pic below) on my SK890 chunky machine (with ribber). I assembled the pieces, and then hand knit the yoke up to the neck, raglan style. The yoke is Barbara Walker's Triple L Tweed stitch, which, apart from being a nice way to mix the related colours, also gives the fabric some sturdiness over the shoulders. I figured the raglan shaping could get ugly as different bits of the tweed patterning ran into each other (and I could not figure out how to work the raglan decreases into the patterning, seamlessly), so I ran 4 separate bobbins of main colour to do the raglan stitches. I assume they will get tidier when they are washed/settle in.

I will say I was a bit disappointed in the yarn -- it seems unable to support its own weight so the whole sweater is stretching as it's worn. I did miscalculate the length of the main body part (because I forgot to subtract for the ribbing), but beyond that, it's trending towards longer (and narrower) than anticipated in my test swatching. The yarn is the same composition (80% merino, 20% mohair) as Green Mountain Spinnery's Mountain Mohair. While this is softer feeling than the Mountain Mohair, I'd use the latter over this for future projects, because it knows how to hold its own.

Final dimensions: Shoulder top to hem: 31" (was about 28" when knitting finished, but the whole sweater is stretching); Under sleeve seam, underarm to bottom of cuff: 20"; Width at chest: 23 1/2" (47" around).

	Back yoke -- note the separately-coloured raglan shaping stitches
	Laid out flat -- whole sweater, yoke detail (and neckline shaping), and bottom cuff. You can barely see the distinction between brown and wine -- poor colour value choices on my part
	Detail of the shoulder/sleeve cap and neckline; detail of the cuff -- you can see the brown/wine distinction slightly better
	I knit the back, front and sleeves from the bottom (ribbed cuff) up to the yoke, on my SK890 knitting machine with ribber. I knit them off onto waste yarn, blocked them, and picked up the stitches for the yoke. I wound up seaming the body & sleeves, because it was too awkward to have so many pieces flying around while working on the yoke.

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