Yarn Along: Mushroom Sweater and Albion's Seed

The mushroom sweater is complete!  I'm so pleased to have actually finished a sweater that fits me!  It is a little bit too warm outside to wear it, but I think it will be lovely this winter, especially with dresses.  

So, construction details.  I used an Andalusian stitch pattern, which is super easy to memorize and very easy to "read" in the knitting as you go along.  Basically it is a four row stockinette stitch with a 1x1 rib row thrown into row 3.  I used Ann Budd's sweater book for the pattern, and knit a size 36 as my previous experience with her book is that there is a LOT of ease in the patterns and I wanted this to be fairly fitted.  

I used Lion Brand Wool Ease in mushroom for this project, and knit mostly on size 8s.  I used 5s for the ribbing as I wanted the ribbing to pull in quite a bit for the waist band.  I made the sleeves less wide than called for (10 stitches less) and as a result, the sleeve cap ended up a bit wide, but that worked out to make nice little 1940s style puff at the top.  I just ran a basting stitch with the tail yarn from both sleeves and pulled it in a bit as I sewed my mattress stitch.  

My only complaint is the shoulders--when I tried on the sweater before adding the sleeves, the shoulders were the perfect width, but after adding the sleeves, somehow they pulled out to the very edge of my shoulders, so I don't know what I did wrong in setting in the sleeves to cause that.  

I steam blocked the sweater because of the high acrylic/rayon content, which worked great (except for the steam burn on my hand!)  I used some vintage buttons (probably 1930s era, going by the card and the condition).  I debated about the buttons a lot, as I had several options, but in the end, I felt these reddish brown buttons would give the sweater the most versatility.

I also cracked Albion's Seed this week.  It is a doorstop of a book that promises to be a fascinating look at how immigration affected various regional culture in America.

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along.