FO Friday: Lake Michigan Tee from Summer 2015 Knitscene

Hello there, new sweater!

I've kind of been holding out on you: this project has technically been finished since June 10, but I didn't get a chance to block it out til last weekend, and I really didn't want to share it until I had some awesome photos of a totally washed-and-blocked sweater to share!

If you've been following my progress, you may already know that I started this project back in April, when I found the perfect skein of hand-dyed grey yarn at the Leading Men Fiber Arts booth at YarnCon. I used the mondo skein Soliloquy in London Fog ( a BFL sock yarn) to knit the yoke of the sweater, and it enabled me to destash two more skeins of yarn from the coffers: Top Draw Socks from Skein Yarn (Knight, the variegated colorway which comprises most of the sweater body) and a skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock I dyed with my own personal color I call Inky.

The Lake Michigan Tee is part of Allyson Dykhuizen's collection in the Summer 2015 issue of Knitscene (available online via the Interweave Store), and it was a really cool sweater construction I've never done before. I'm usually kind of wary of these things, because I find most crazy constructions don't fit me as well as the more traditional approaches. However, I was rewarded for taking the chance this time around!

The hardest part of the sweater (for me) was knitting the patterned yoke; perhaps I had so many issues because I was also trying to watch my favorite anime series and reading subtitles while knitting a charted knit/purl chevron pattern? It's possible!

Once the yoke was complete, it was smooth sailing: I picked up some stitches to form the body of the sweater, and knit miles of stockinette til I ran out of yarn. The bulk of this section was completed on the bus to and from TNNA, and it was the perfect project to take on the road since I could pick it up and set it back down quickly. I didn't knit a whole lot during the trade show (I was in meetings for 11 hours both days!), but when I was able to sneak in a few stitches, it was nice to not have to worry about messing it up and having to frog it later.

There weren't a lot of ends to weave in, and blocking was super easy and I am totally in love with how this turned out!

In other news: last call for my gradient sock yarn giveaway, I'll be announcing the winner this coming Monday! Click here for your chance to win!

Have a fun and crafty weekend!

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