Flashy Knitting

This is one of those occasions where I saw a pattern and immediately wanted to make it. I saw the Volt sweater by Sue Stratford and something about the simple shape combined with the David Bowie lightning bolt called my name. I picked out some Cascade 220 colours and kept them aside as a nice project to do while I was relaxing a bit after finishing with my previous job.

I took this with me on a family weekend (which was PERFECT after the stressful last couple of weeks at work- the shop I worked at closed and we had a huge sale and then had to pack everything and ship it off- chilling with my family and going on long walks was just what I needed after that).

I started with the front, so after the ribbing it's pretty much headfirst into intarsia, which I'm not that experienced at (My previous major colourwork project was mostly stranded since I couldn't face the thought of weaving in SO MANY ends). With this pattern it's entirely possible to carry the different colours of yarn up along the rows, so apart from small areas in the middle of the lightning bolt I could just work with continuous lengths.

I liked the little details that made this sweater a bit more interesting, like the shaped/cabled ribbing on the sides and sleeve cuffs. As usual I worried the overall sweater would be too small, but it turned out to be perfectly slouchy. Construction is straightforward, you knit the front and back first without casting on the shoulders, which are then joined with a three-needle bind-off (which I think it awesome and way more fun than seaming pieces together). After this, stitches are picked up along the side to knit the sleeves flat, and the side and underarm seam are joined in one go. After this, stitches kept on hold at the front and back neckline are put to work again and additional stitches picked up for the neckband.

I'm glad I bothered to try the i-cord bind off for this neckline, since it's a nice little touch.

This sweater knit up surprisingly fast, and I feel like I learned a lot from something that looks pretty simple! I'm definitely not as afraid of intarsia anymore. I'm pretty short on knitting time these days though, with a new job and (gasp!) school work and other things. But there is some pretty interesting sewing going on!