Good Bad Penny

I finished a short sleeve cotton sweater, Bad Penny, a Stefanie Japel pattern. I love how it turned out! I used GGH Linova, a cotton-linen yarn - dark green for the main color and lime green for contrast. The colors will look better in the natural light- gotta remember to take a new picture outdoors this weekend. Anyway, I'm pretty sure anyone who's wanted to knit this pattern, did so years ago. I'm behind the times in my knitting but I'll catch up eventually.

The pattern is fairly easy; plain knitting in the round, not too challenging. I tend to wear simpler styles anyway, so this top fits right in with my wardrobe. I do feel that I knit this sweater twice, though. Halfway through (the first time), I tried it on only to find out it was too big and frogged it. Had to rejigger the math to size it down, below the smallest written size in the pattern. I'm not teeny but it was just a little too baggy. Annoying but I'm glad I did it. I'm happy with the fit.

Funny enough, the topic of proper fit has been discussed lately on Interweave's Knitting Daily and the podcast, Stash and Burn. We invest so much time and effort into knitting these garments for ourselves that we really ought to learn how to customize patterns to our own bodies. Make the sweaters (and ourselves!) look their best! Isn't it disappointing when a sweater turns out frumpy dumpy? Didn't look that way in the pattern/magazine/book photo, did it? Oh well.

Lesson learned. Take realistic measurements of myself and (maybe) save myself the trouble of knitting the wrong size.