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This is my favorite green. But not my favorite sweater.

Do you notice the matching handmade buttons? With a tapestry needle, I made the buttonhole stitch with the lopi yarn around plastic O rings of an inch in diameter. Turn-of-the-century bone buttons were sewn into the center of button. These bone buttons were rescued from men's underwear ... the kind of old-fashioned turn-of-the-century men's underwear that had long sleeves and long legs and a flap in the back. A union suit.

Learn from my mistakes. There's a fundamental flaw in the yoke design. Do you spot it? This is what I get for just making up the pattern with graph paper and colored pencils.

Don't get me wrong, I get compliments on this sweater all the time. Which is so nice. Once in London a stranger on the street stopped me and said they loved my sweater! But frankly, between you and me, I am a little embarassed to wear this sweater. And I would certainly never wear it to a congregation of real knitters, like at a knitting retreat or the madness that is Ally Pally.

The problem is, the fair isle patterning in the yoke is way too random. There is no real pattern at all. If you compare this green sweater to my brother's black sweater, there is just no comparison. My brother's sweater is much more calculated; more planning went into it. Also, the yoke on this green sweater does not have any of the green body color in it at all. And, as hindsight is 20/20, you really must incorporate some of the body color into the yoke design.


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Solid green cardigan with fair isle yoke, as well as matching fair isle patterning at the wrists and hips.

Reynold's brand regular lopi yarn (not the lite yarn)

Yarn purchased at The Red Needle in downtown Colorado Springs, where I took the Scandinavian knitting class in which we all made these yoked sweaters.

Knit with Clover brand bamboo circulars and DPNs (because I was young and didn't know any better)

I took all the mathematics from a Reynold's lopi pattern book which we had to purchase for the class, but the fair isle patterning was all me, graph paper and colored pencils.


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