Finished: Chicken Pakora Jumper

  

I love this jumper. I didn't think I needed a plain jumper in my life, but I was taken with the simplicity of the Ysolda Blank Canvas pattern and fell in love with the burnt orange wool. So much did I love the wool that even though I bought a different shade first, I had to go back to the shop and swap it for this, as I couldn't stop thinking about this colour. It's lovely.

(Sorry for the serious face)

The wool is Drops Lima which is a mix of wool and alpaca, and is very slightly fuzzy. The colour has a real depth to it, with tones of red, orange and yellow. The first photo shows the colour best, all the others look too yellow.

I love the shape of the pattern with the vertical decreases on the front and back to give a feminine shape. It has raglan-esque sleeves, which are shaped in an interesting way - described by Ysolda as being a mix between a saddle shoulder and a raglan. I think the whole design is so flattering. It is shaped without being skin-tight fitted. I went for 3/4 sleeve length as stated in the pattern because I thought this was a bit more elegant than full sleeves. If you were knitting full sleeves you would also need to slim down the sleeve towards the cuff.

 Back view - excuse the wrinkle. Perhaps this means I need to do some kind of sway back adjustment but I have no idea how to do this for knitting and I certainly can't be bothered finding out. I've got an 'out of sight, out of mind' view about this one. Also my shoulders look so broad here, no wonder I always struggle with fit in this area.

How was the pattern to knit? Great! Easy, and I enjoyed it as a mostly mindless knit while relaxing. The only thing I didn't like was the neckband. The pattern is kit from the bottom up and has you cast off at front and back then pick up stitches on front and back pieces and on the diagonal (for sides of neckband). I found this time-consuming and tricky, and mentioned this in my Ravelry notes on the project. Ysolda actually replied to say that the reason for doing it this way was to prevent the neck stretching out of shape over time. This makes sense and I appreciated Ysolda commenting. (I was also a bit concerned in case what I'd written came across as rude, but I think I was ok, and it was my opinion after all!)

With the neckband, you pick up one stitch for each horizontal and 2 out of 3 stitches for each diagonal at the side of the neckband. The neckband was a sore point for me as I picked up too many stitches and had to rip the whole thing out because it stuck out from the jumper in a weird way. Totally my fault and I had to re-do. The resulting neck seemed a bit high at first but it's fine post-blocking and I like that it isn't low enough to show a t-shirt beneath.

 Close up to try and show the front shaping (with cat)

Would I knit it again? Yes, absolutely. It's a great pattern to show off a special yarn and is enjoyable to knit if you're in the mood for some straightforward knitting.

K x

p.s The title is from a comment by my Current Husband, who was likening the colour to chicken pakora...
p.p.s Sorry that you've kind of seen this before when I blogged about my skirt but I thought it deserved its own post