Ranunculus Sweater by Midori Hirose

This started with a co-worker chatting to me about her discovery that the Ranunculus is far and away the most popular pattern on Ravelry, and she wasn’t sure why. We did some research and learned that it’s very modifiable, and because popularity breeds popularity, there were tons of knit-along videos available to help knitters through the tricky parts. I could tell that this was probably a little bit above my skill level, but thought it would be fun to attempt with the help of all those videos.

It’s obviously way too big, even at the smallest size (1), but I did some math and figured out that if I used DK yarn with size 6 and 8 needles, I could get the right size. Unfortunately, I forgot to switch from 6 to 8 after I finished the yoke (facepalm), so it’s a bit smaller than I intended, but I still think it looks nice.

My other big mistake was not accounting for the fact that smaller needles meant that I would need more yarn, so I ran out of grey before I got to the end. My yarn shop no longer had that color, so I switched to black for the remainder of the body, then undid the ends of the sleeves and added black to the ends. I actually think it turned out really well! I might do this again, on purpose, for another project.

Knitting: “Love Note Sweater” from Tin Can Knits

I recently started knitting sweaters again, which I hadn’t done in about 20 years (I’ve still been knitting a bit, but I’ve stuck to baby blankets, scarves, and afghans, mostly as gifts). I recently completed my second sweater, the “Love Note Sweater” from Tin Can Knits. The pattern is available here for $9, and what I particularly love about Tin Can Knits is that they have an iPhone app, which allows you to select your size, and then it shows you ONLY the instructions for your size. Super useful, and makes following the pattern much easier. You can also enter your own personal notes.

I chose this design after seeing an already-knit example in my friend Kelley’s yarn shop, The Royal Bee Yarn Company, and selected one of her own DK-weight yarns to create it. The color is “Luscious Marmalade Lantana.” Kelley’s yarns are non-superwash merino wool, so they feel great on your hands while knitting, and produce a beautiful garment. Because they’re hand-dyed, even the “solid” colors have a little variation to them, which I think looks great. I love Kelley, so it’s also nice to carry a little bit of her with me when I wear it.

Skill-wise, this project was a bit challenging for me. It’s knit from the top down, and I had to restart the project 3 times. The first time, I made what, in retrospect, is an obvious mistake: Because the lace pattern consists of increases and decreases that net out to zero each time the repeat completes, I didn’t think about the fact that if I ended the pattern in the wrong spot, I might be adding or subtracting a stitch, throwing the entire pattern off. So I started again a second time, but I still kept making mistakes in the lace pattern (this time I stopped and re-started more quickly!). The third time was the charm: I made a couple of small mistakes in the lace pattern, but I think only I would have noticed them.

I generally find sweaters to be too short, so I added 6 inches to the body length, and I added a couple of inches each to the sleeves. I intended for them to reach to the wrist, which obviously isn’t quite the case. At least they are even! I also dropped the “high-low” hem at the bottom, which I generally don’t like, and made the hem even. I’m really happy with how it turned out.