Cobblestone Pullover - done!
Knitting the Cobblestone has been, if you will forgive the bad pun, a long and bumpy road over the last few months. Last weekend, I finally got to here:
I could have wiped my brow, woven in the ends, and relaxed into it, but I worked on it a few more days, and now it looks like this:
What you are seeing, my friends, is the love-child of the Cobblestone pullover and the Wonderful Wallaby! I am enormously pleased with the results of this fortuitous union of patterns - have you ever seen a more beautiful mutant? (Note: If you’re interested in such a mutation, the dirty details are illustrated below)
Yarn: La Paz, a light worsted wool hand-dyed by Laura Macagno Shang of Textiles a Mano. I used just under 1500 yards total.
Gauge: 5.5 spi on size 4 needles, in stockinette. My gauge was off from the pattern, so I chose to knit the one with 230 stitches, to get a circumference of roughly 41 inches. As is my wont, it was not 41 in the end but 39.5, but for once, this turned out to be a good, fitting thing.
If you come across this yarn at a craft fair, or even order from Laura’s site, I highly recommend it. I made another aran pullover with it, which has worn like iron. The colours are at once brilliant and subtle, and hold well. I fell in love with the rich sense of foliage that this colourway brought to mind, like I was walking in a dense forest after the rains. But now, I can also see the cobblestones, almost:
Modifications and Notes:
1) Waist shaping: I loved the roomy, comfy look of the original Cobblestone, but wanted some shaping. About four inches into the body, I decreased one stitch at each end of the purl bands on the sides, four times every six rows. Then I knit straight for three inches, and increased back at the same gradient to the original cast-on number. Incidentally, the purl bands are a mistake an accidental modification - it was only much later that I realised the pattern had called for garter bands. As it turns out, I prefer them this way.
2) Yoke decreases: The yoke decreases in the pattern are for men’s shapes, and men who pump some iron, it seemed like. I did the short rows at the bottom of the yoke, but then began the circular decreases at once, and decreased every inch and a half to get the shallower yoke I needed for my dimensions. Can you notice that small bulge at the arms right where the yoke begins? I had seen it on a lot of finished versions on Ravelry, but it was only after finishing and blocking that I realised how I could have avoided it. If you want a smoother arm line, remember to do one round of decreases *before* the short rows. I must say, though, that the short-rows at the armpits and neck are genius. They really make the back and shoulders fit beautifully.
3) Sleeves: >I cast on 46 stitches in the round for the sleeves, and increased every 4 rows until I had 84, and then knit even till the sleeves were about 18 inches. I had to block them out a bit to get them to fit comfortably. I’d probably increase every 4 for a bit, then every 6 or 8 after about 10 inches the next time.
4) V-neck opening: Early on I was worried that for all its comfyness, this crew-neck-garter-yoke wouldn’t be the most flattering for the generously endowed, but I really liked the pattern all the same. So I decided to make it a V, to break up the expanse a bit, as it were. At the front mid-point I began knitting back and forth, leaving the centre stitch on a safety pin. Having done two inches in garter, however, this did mean knitting half the yoke fully in knit, and the other half fully in purl, to maintain the evenness of the garter stitch. If you want to avoid this, you could make the V-neck deeper, and knit back and forth right from the beginning of the yoke.
5) Hood: After completing the yoke, I felt the sweater still looked kinda unfinished, and that’s when the hooded Wallaby idea stepped in. I cast off (after some consultation with LittleMousling on Ravelry!), and picked up stitches for the hood to give the neckline more structure. After an inch, I increased 24 stitches evenly across, to make the hood roomier. I knit for 10 inches total, decreasing gradually at the centre the last two inches, and then joining the two halves of the hood with a three-needle bind-off. I toyed with the idea of a pocket, but felt that would make the sweater look altogether too busy.
6) Placket and I-Cord: Finally, I began picking up stitches at the top of the hood, and all around the hood and V-neck opening. I knit two rows in reverse stockinette, with three YO, K2tog holes on the second row on both sides of the neck. I cast off with a size 7 needle the third row, and heaved a massive sigh of relief that the damn neckline did not pucker. I knit an I-Cord with only two stitches, threaded it in, and was done!
I cannot emphasise how thrilled I am with the final outcome, both for the way it looks, and for the way in which I was able to make the desired modifications work out. Of course, this meant I had to really dive into the frogpond, but it was totally worth it. Even though designing my own sweaters is still in the future, I do think I am getting more confident about visualising modifications to existing patterns and figuring out ways to put them in practice. I will wear this Cobbleby a.k.a. Wallastone for years, hopefully. I certainly will wear it continuously for the remainder of my Spring break till Monday!
