FO Friday: Block! Island! Pullover!

I'm over the moon with this week's FO: my Block Island Pullover by Allyson Dykhuizen, which I started in January of this year! The pattern is from the Fall 2014 issue of Knitscene, and when my knitting group was placing an order with Peace Fleece (hot tip: they'll give anyone wholesale pricing so long as the order is a minimum of $150), I knew this was a great opportunity to snag a sweater's worth of yarn.

I chose two colors of Peace Fleece Worsted, Patience Blue (the darker color) and Indigo Smoke. The yarn has a little bit of mohair in it, but you really wouldn't know it from coming across it randomly (unless you have an allergy of course) - it's not at all like the mohair you remember from the 80's...and that's a good thing!

I didn't totally enjoy knitting with this yarn for a couple of reasons: first, it was kind of tough to work with because it's so sturdy and strong. The benefit to that, however, is I'm sure this sweater will last forever and hardly ever pill - so sometimes, the suffering is worth it!

The second reason I didn't fall in love with this yarn as I knit with it was because there was so much vege matter in each skein. I thought it wouldn't bother me - and for a smaller project, it usually doesn't - but for a sweater project, it quickly became annoying, not to mention it really slowed me down.

The light at the end of the tunnel? I absolutely love the finished sweater. I washed it in Allure and it got about 200 times softer than it had been when I was knitting with it. And it fits great! I'm not sure that I'll ever knit another sweater with this yarn, but I definitely would use it for smaller projects (which is great news since I have a couple of skeins leftover - matching hat, perhaps?!).

Have you ever worked with Peace Fleece yarn? I'd love to hear your take on it!

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