I figure I better get this sweater posted sharpish since the weather is definitely turning toward spring. It's not warm yet, but the highs and lows are moving out of deep winter temps and I'm slowly taking away some of my daytime winter layers. (The trick I've discovered this winter is to start with silk long underwear--not synthetic!--and then a merino wool base layer over that, then my outer clothes, usually a sweater and wool skirt with wool tights, or a sweater with jeans, although truthfully, the jeans aren't as warm as a wool skirt and wool tights. But I digress. As usual).
The yarn is reasonably nice to knit with on the caveat that I pulled about a cereal bowl's worth of vegetation out of the yarn, which was pretty annoying at times. The yarn doesn't have a particularly rustic feel but the vegetation, man. Something else. It's warm, but not as warm as I would have expected given the worsted weight and the relative density of the fabric I made.
I knew I wanted to make a turtleneck, because along with feeling cold most of the time these days, I find I'm colder in a crew neck. I hunted around for a pattern that had a turtleneck and some kind of texture that wouldn't drive me bananas to knit (or take the yardage up into the stratosphere) and found the Hyannis Port pullover by Cecily Glowik. I've made at least one of her patterns before, so I thought it would be okay.
A couple of pattern notes. The order of operations on this thing is a little silly. She has you cast on 102 stitches at the neck, do all the sweater, then go back and cast on the 102 stitches around the neck for the turtleneck. I wanted a tubular edge on the turtleneck, so I cast on 102 stitches, did the ribbing for however long the pattern says, and then started the pattern for the shoulders. I also know from my Lightweight Pullover that some short row shaping at the back neck would be helpful, so I added that before beginning the raglan increases. I also picked up a few more stitches under the arm and added additional decreases to account for it. The rest of the pattern is fairly straight forward although it assumes a lot about construction, so not great for a beginner. I probably could have stood to make this a size down, but I'm still figuring out what size to knit myself now.
Two criticisms (aside from the order of work) is that she has you do all the ribbing on the same size needle as the body; I think I would have preferred a slightly snugger turtleneck on a size 6 needle, and perhaps a little less length. The turtleneck is also very tall and ends up more like a cowl since it flops over, but it doesn't bug me enough to undo the neck and redo it. (At least not yet. We all know my capacity for frogging stuff that bugs me. Stay tuned for a knitting alteration of an older make). And I don't know why this is, but even though the central panel is perfectly straight, and looks straight IRL, it seems to widen at the bottom in the pictures.
That said, while I don't think I'll be buying more Shelter, I'm glad to have worked with it, and I've worn this a few times since finishing it in early February and have been happy to have it.
