Cool blue sahara

In between packing boxes, I finished up my Sahara for the Sexy Knitters Club knitalong. I guess this makes me sexy. Or perhaps it makes me a knitter. Or perhaps a club. (I have been known to be a bit blunt.) The colour isn't quite true; it's more of a dark denim-y blue than a navy blue. In all the moving chaos, I haven't had a chance to block the sweater yet; I expect blocking will make it softer and drapier than it already is.





I made the following modifications:

• Decreased the neck depth. I felt the sweater looked better proportioned on bustier people with a shallower neck.
  
• Reworked the bust/waist shaping. I made the bust larger, the waist smaller, started the shaping further down (under the fullest part of my bust), and changed the shaping accordingly.
  
• Added a bust dart. I put bust darts in all my sweaters. They fit much, much better with this feature.
  
• Increased neck trim. I needed four repeats of the neck trim pattern to meet in the middle of the neck.
  

Yarn: Silky Tweed, somewhere around 7-8 skeins. I have a lot of this floating around, so it was a bit difficult to count in the moving chaos. Silky Tweed is soft and lovely, but a bit splitty, even with Stumpi Bluntos.

Needles: One Addi Turbo 16" circular in size 4. If these had pointy points, they'd be perfect! In this case, I appreciated the dull tips, because the Silky Tweed was splitty enough on its own.

My goodness, I'm knitting from a pattern

I've wanted to knit along with the Sexy Knitter's Club for a while, but quite a few people there seem to have a predilection for bra-unfriendly designs. Given that I (and probably everyone around me) would be happier if I wore a bra, I waited until Sahara came along. (Yes, I'm knitting from a pattern. Kinda.)

I've been knitting away at it in my last week of work (I'm now temporarily unemployed, pending the move to CA), during endless discussions about how to move (scorched earth option), and kitty's dentist appointment (he now has one fewer tooth, but all the drugs). (BTW, the muffin-top look is an optical illusion. I even checked after squinting at this picture for a while.)

Changes to the pattern:

• Gauge. Knit with Silky Tweed at a smidge over 5.5 stitches per inch
  
• Neckline. Closed off the neckline early for (I felt) a more flattering look on me and ease in bust adjustments.
  
• Bust. Added quite a few extra stitches in the bust and a short-row dart.
  
• Waist. Nipped in the waist more than on the pattern, and adjusted the seam decreases/increases to reflect this and the extra room in the bust.
  

Hey, for me, this is following a pattern!