Antrorse ~ the details and mods

Hi, Knitters,

Quickly, I have a couple of teaching announcements. I will be at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC 2016! I'd love to see you there.  

Mark your calendar for Vogue Knitting LIVE New York January 15-17! I’ll be teaching there! Register here: http://bit.ly/1GIsIy4 #vklive

Also, the registration for the DFW Fiber Fest, April 1-3, 2016, has just opened. I can't wait for this one. Click here to find out more about the classes and more! Here is another link with lots of event information: click here.

Last one for today, I am teaching at A Good Yarn in Sarasota, Florida from March 19-21, 2016. Contact the shop if you are interested in attending my classes! Click here for more info.

Now for the business at hand. Today I am sharing the details of how I knit my Antrorse sweater by Shannon cook. I have talked about it a bit already but I like to have a blog post with all of the information in one place. So let's start with some general links for the pattern and materials.

Pattern: Antrorse by Shannon Cook of soveryshannon.com

The Antrorse pattern is sold individually but it is also part of a collection book called Journey.

The pattern is written in a fill-in-the-blanks format where all of the numbers are written in large charts. The knitter finds the numbers for the size being knit on these charts and then fills in the numbers in the blanks in the written pattern. The pattern is written in 11 different sizes, ranging from a 30-inch to a 50-inch bust. 

As you can imagine the wide range of sizes makes for a lot of numbers and I suppose that the charts and fill-in-the-blank pattern style makes things simpler for the knitter. This may be true but I didn't enjoy the extra steps of finding my size numbers on the charts and then filling in the blanks before starting the knitting. I also worry that there is more opportunity for errors to be made when transferring the numbers to the pattern. I think a couple groupings of sizes in parantheses and/or brackets would suffice fine and would eliminate these extra steps. That's just my opinion and I know others enjoy this type of pattern style.

With that being said, it was all fine and the pattern is wonderfully well-written and clear.  

Yarn: Quince & Co. Osprey in the Peacoat colorway, 100% wool in aran weight

Needles: US size 10, 32-inch circular and double-pointed needles 

I used Knit Picks nickel-plated interchangeable needles for the circular needles and Knitters' Pride Karbonz double-pointed needles in the 6-inch length.

Size: I made the 36-inch bust size which has a 38.25-inch finished measurement. 

This gives me a little over 2-inches of positive ease. Be sure to check the finished measurements when selecting your size because they are different than the listed size measurements. 

Buttons: From Wooly Moss Roots on Etsy, 1.25 inch buttons in Black Walnut

 

Pattern Notes: 

~ The sweater is worked from the top-down starting with the funnel garter neckline. The neckline is worked flat, back and forth, and the  three one-row buttonholes are worked in as you go. Then the flat garter neckline is joined to work in the round. Increases are made yoke-style, where the increases are spread out across the rows/rounds. 

~ Once the shoulders are joined to work in the round you start a simple Chevron panel chart that is worked down the entire front of sweater. The chart is just simple knits and purls and it is fun and keeps things interesting. I really enjoyed it. The start of the round is the first stitch of the chart which keeps things easy to knit and follow.

~ When the yoke is completed the sleeves are separated and the stitches are held on waste yarn. The body is then worked down to the hem. I shortened the body quite a bit. The pattern is written for more of a tunic-length garment. If you look at the posted projects on Ravelry for Antrorse you will see that many are made much longer than mine coming down past the bottom to the top of the legs. This length does not work well on my figure so I shortened it up. 

~ The final body length measurement from the underarm to the bottom bound-off edge on my sweater is 14-inches. I worked 10 garter ridges, which is less than in the pattern. 

~ I did not include any waist shaping. 

~ After the body is completed the sleeve stitches are placed back on the needles and the sleeve is worked from the underarm to the cuff. My sleeves measure 17-inches from the underarm to the bound-off edge of the cuff. I did 9 garter ridges for the cuffs, which is less than in the pattern.

~ The pattern gives you measurement increments instead of round counts for the sleeve decreases. Instead of using the measurements I figured out how many rounds would measure the same as the given increment and kept track of the sleeve decreases that way. So for example (this is just an example not exact to the pattern), if the pattern says to decrease every 1.25-inches, I figure out that 7 rounds equals about 1.25-inches. Therefore every 7th round I worked the sleeve decreases as written in the pattern.  

The part I love most about top-down sweater patterns is that you can try them on as you work. Here I am trying the sweater on after I completed the body and before getting ready to start the sleeves.

Top-down construction is really great for figuring out the perfect length for the sleeves and the body before binding off. When you are wearing the garment the lengths tend to shorten up compared to the lengths when the garment is measured flat.

Before sewing on the buttons I washed and blocked the sweater by soaking it in Twig & Horn Wool Soap in the Rosewood scent. I just laid the sweater flat to dry on my blocking boards without any stretching or pins, kind of as is. The wool really relaxed and softened up to make a cozy fabric. 

Antrorse is a beautiful and wearable sweater. The Osprey yarn from Quince & Co. is lovely aran weight wool. It is smooth and fast to knit.  

 

The only other thing I did to clean up the neckline opening is that I stitched the base of the opening closed for about an inch and using a length of the yarn. This helped to hold the edges closed and in place a little better. I used matching thread to sew on the the lovely handcrafted wooden buttons from Wooly Moss Roots.

Well, there you have it. Antrorse was a pleasure to knit and it is a pleasure to wear. If you'd like to see me wearing the sweater I wore it in stages in Episode 20 of my video podcast.

Click here to see my podcast on YouTube!

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I'll be back soon with much more.
xo ~ susan