It's finished! It's finished!
I started making the crocheted version of Lion Brand Flattering Jacket #668 about 1999 or 2000. I worked on it one winter and finished the back and right side. When it came time to do the left side the directions basically said "do the right side in reverse" and I couldn't get my mind wrapped around reversing the shaping of collar and armhole simultaneously. I threw the sweater down, tossed it in a box and sometime later unraveled it and turned it into a blanket for my grandson.
In 2009 I picked up some lovely Montera llama/wool yarn. It was just the color I wanted for this sweater coat, so I tried again. This time I would do the knit version of the pattern, #753.
My first winter's efforts got lost in a closet over a couple of summers. When I brought it back out I had to rippit back to square one and start over. I got the back and both front sections finished last winter. This fall I declared I would get the sweater finished so I could wear it all winter. All my sock knitting paid off! I found an extra long circular needle in the proper size to knit the sleeves and did them two at a time. Yep. The are exactly the same shape and length.
Oh, yes, I still found the instructions less than helpful for the left side of the front, but I started studying it and realized that there is no back or front to the fabric. I could make 2 right sides and just turn one over to become the left side when I sewed the sweater together. That's what I did. No stress. No trauma. It would have been nice to have had a drawing of how the facings worked around the front and neck of the sweater. The directions essentially said, "Sew it together" and left you to your own devices. My first attempt didn't work at all so I pretty much said, "I don't care what they want, this is the way I think it should go." Everything came out looking like a sweater. I'm happy.
I finished the sweater on November 17, just in time to wear as the days get cooler and the house gets a bit chilly. However, a year or more of construction time in a house full of cats and dogs meant the yarn was full of hair that never saw a llama. I know it isn't good to machine wash and dry wool. It will shrink and/or felt. On the other hand, as large as this sweater is, I would never get it washed properly by hand. I crossed my fingers, gritted my teeth and put it in the front-load washer on cold wash/gentle cycle and prayed that it wouldn't become a Barbie sweater. When it came out of the washer I placed it on towels on the kitchen table and allowed it to dry for a day before putting it back on Groomhilda, the dressmaker's mannequin, for final shaping.
It did shrink, and it felted a bit, but I'm glad it did. Had it not shrank it would be WAY to large for me. As is, the pockets fall just below my fingertips. The felting makes it warmer, but it is still an attractive sweater. Shaping the 90% dry sweater around Groomhilda allowed me to tug it into my shape.
Now if I could just find that shawl pin I bought a few years ago, I could even pull it shut in front and close it.
For more history on this sweater coat, see Lion Brand Flattering Knit Jacket, Mom's White Sweater and Hurricane Carla posted May 20, 2009 in this blog.
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/khs-flatteringJacket.html
