Winners & Favorite Sweater 5 for #projectsweaterchest

Hi, Knitters,

Early this morning I randomly selected the winners for the Little Skein in the Big Wool winners. Anne Vally, the creative mind of Little Skein, has generously upped the ante once again. She wrote me that she wanted me to select 9 winners for this exclusive giveaway: 1 Luxe Kit, 1 skein of Anne's Story sock yarn, and 7 sets of stitch markers! Here's how it turned out:

Winner of the Luxe Kit: pattytrish (rav id)

Winner of the Anne's Story sock yarn: sewknittystar (rav id)

Winners of a set of stitch markers:

1. bookchick29 (rav id)

2. karenswb (rav id)

3. cascott (rav id)

4. flogigknits (rav id)

5. alilou (rav id)

6. tjf (email entered)

7. yarnaddict (rav id)

Hooray! Congratulations! I have sent all of your Ravelry IDs and email address to Anne of Little Skein. She will be in touch to gather your mailing addresses. Thank you to everyone for entering. It was a great response and I loved reading about all of the Anne of Green Gables connections and memories. It was really quite sweet.

Now on to today's topic at hand. I am on Favorite Sweater number 5 for the #projectsweaterchest along. If you are just joining me I made a little video of my favorite sweaters in a casual fashion show kind of way and now I am giving details on them in no particular order.

Or Click here to see the 10 Favorite Sweaters video!

As I've been traveling around to teach this fall I have had more comments from people on the two sweater videos I made and posted about a month ago. That has been really fun to hear and the person is always laughing or smiling when they talk to me about it. I love that. 

There was no planning for these videos at all. I looked at my sweater chest one day and thought I should try on my favorites and some oldies and record it. I arranged the top 10 on top for quick access and started filming. It was one take for both of the videos. 

Click here for the Oldies video!

Today the featured favorite cardigan is the Basic Chic Hoodie by Bonne Marie Burns or Chic Knits. 

Click here for the Basic Chic Hoodie pattern information!

I decided to knit this very simple top-down raglan hoodie using up a skein of my handspun striped with some black Cascade 220 from my stash. The handspun began as a bullseye bump from Loop.

Click here for Loop on Etsy! Use caution. You will want to purchase everything in this shop!

The thing is the yarn turned out better than I could have imagined. It was a chain-plied worsted weight and came in at about 250 yards. I wanted to do something really special with the finished skein.

For more details on the spinning of the Loop Bullseye Bump click here!

I searched and searched until I found the most basic simple hoodie pattern and the entire project turned out perfectly.

For more details on the knitting of the cardigan click here!

I enjoyed everything about knitting the Basic Chic Hoodie. The pattern is clear and well-written. This would be a perfect first time cardigan project. It couldn't be any more basic and simple. The pattern has a lace panel front option included. The size range is from a 36 to a 54 inch bust so it is expansive. 

I had some custom buttons made by Deerfield Creations. These are my most favorite buttons of all time. They are hand-turned black wood buttons and they are smooth as butter and beautiful.

Click here for the Deerfield Creations website!

I made some modifications but you wouldn't need to change a thing. I made my hoodie in the smallest size. These are the modifications I made to the original pattern:

- worked at a slightly different gauge (smaller)

- added waist shaping

- changed the number of sts cast on under the sleeves (fewer)

- changed the sleeve decreases (did a rapid decrease right away to get rid of extra fabric under the arms and then continued on a bit differently than the pattern suggests)

- changed the length of the body and sleeves

- changed the buttonhole number 

- picked up a different number of stitches for the button bands and hood edging

- used kitchener stitch to close up the top seam of the hood to give a smoother finish (instead of 3-needle bind-off)

- added the stripes!

I finished the cardigan a little over a year ago. I wore it a lot last winter and plan on repeating that for the upcoming cold season. It fits great, it is comfortable and it looks sharp. Plus, I used up my entire skein of handspun for a sweater. What could be better than that?

There is more to come for #projectsweaterchest! People are already posting in Instagram using the hashtag. This is a long knitalong being run by Leslie of The Knitgirrls, Jasmin and Gigi of the Knitmore Girls and me. Basically it's simple to participate, just hashtag your Instagram photos that relate to knitting sweaters starting now or anytime with #projectsweaterchest. Periodically prizes are going to be drawn. The podcasters are planning on talking a lot about sweater knitting and how to choose and knit a successful sweater. 

It is exciting and as more happens I will be sure to link and discuss on here.

Later this week I am planning on recording a new podcast episode and I may just have another exciting giveaway to share. Stay tuned...

xo ~ susan