Menagerie Dottie Pearl Dress and Calligraphy Cardigan

Fresh off the blocking mat is my Calligraphy Cardigan!  I worked on this sweater in the fall and had mostly finished it before Nativity, but I set it aside for a few months to finish the Dusk sweater and a few other things.  I knew I wanted this sweater for my spring, and it just needed button bands and seaming on the sleeves.

So I put my shoulder to the grindstone and cranked out the button bands over the last few weeks.  I was slightly annoyed to discover that the recommended yardage was off by a ball, as I ran out of yarn halfway through the second button band (and I made the button bands an inch narrower than called for!)  I used the Chickadee yarn the pattern was written for, so I really don't understand what happened (and this almost never happens to me since I'm a tight knitter and usually have to size up on needles).  Since I bought the yarn almost a year ago, the dye lots were slightly different, so the one button band is slightly darker on the one half, but it is only noticeable if the sweater is lying flat.  

But it doesn't annoy me enough not to wear it!  I used 192 stitches for the button bands instead of the recommended 190 for this size, as that seemed skimpy to me.  (I cast on 3 stitches for every 4, which was about right).  The blocking really smoothed everything out.  I put it in the washer on a handwash cycle with another sweater and then laid it flat on my drying rack to block.  Since I didn't need to block it aggressively, this worked very well and I will probably do it again.  The bathtub method tends to make my sweaters grow in ways I don't always like.

I used some vintage buttons from my stash that almost exactly matched and I had 10, which was perfect.  I sewed the extra one into the side seam in case of a loss.  I really like this long line style of cardigan right now (with the sailor type collar) and cast on another almost immediately.

And the dress.  This is Cotton+Steel rayon challis, from one of the collaborations with Rifle and Co.  (It is part of the Menagerie line).  I made it as a Dottie Pearl dress, and I think forgot to taper the sleeves at the bottom when I added the 2" of extra length, so they were really flapping in the wind because of the drapey rayon.  So I decided to cinch them with a bit of elastic at the wrist and create a small bishop sleeve silhouette.  I don't think I would do this on every sleeve treatment, but I do like it on this dress!  (After wearing for a morning, I think I might try making the sleeve elastic slightly bigger.  It is slightly tight when worn under a sweater).

But overall, I like the fit of the dress, and the drape is really nice.  It is a shame that the small scale pattern doesn't show up at a distance, because it is quite interesting.  The dress is kind of a spruce green in the background, but it has blue flowers that sort of coordinate with the sweater, so I'm going to call it good.

Small patch pockets, as with the flannel version.  

Elastic sleeve detail.  I didn't do anything fancy--I just hemmed it as usual, and left an opening for the elastic.  I used 1/4" elastic that I use for the back cinch, and just measured my wrist loosely for fit.

You can see the print a bit better here.  If I was really on trend, I would have made this sweater in a mustard color to match the ferns in the dress (Cotton+Steel seems to use this particular shade in a lot of their prints), but I'm not cool that way.  That color doesn't look particularly good near my face.

And besides, blue has a bigger place in my closet.  Overall, I'm happy with this outfit--it is nice for the spring transitional weather, I think.

As for reading, I'm still re-reading Constantina Palmer's Scent of Holiness for Lent, Rodney Stark's Rise of Christianity (excellent sociological study about how Christianity came to be the main religion of the Western world; it has a lot of great information about how conversion works en masse), and I just started Esther Emery's What Falls From the Sky.  

We've had so many sick days, snow days, days off for holidays, church feasts, professional development days, etc. that I'm starting to feel like I'm in an endless summer break with the kids at home.  I haven't had a full week of kids at school since early December.  It is March 8. <sigh>

I did decide to work on the book from a different angle for a little while, to see if that helps me with some areas that I'm stuck on.  (I understand my male protagonist very well, and his flaws/problems/goals/ambitions, but I'm struggling with my female protagonist, and it is through her eyes that a lot of the story is told.  I have a good idea of what I want her character arc to be, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get from point a to point b.  Right now I have a lot of scenes that don't do very much to advance her story arc.  So: outlining and character story boarding.  And editing.  Lots of editing.  And staring at the wall a lot).

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!