beekman (aka she had me at "hello")

At long, long last, my Beekman sweater is done! According to my project page on Ravelry, I started knitting this sweater soon after the pattern was released in October 2013, and it's taken from then until now to finish it.

I had so many problems knitting this sweater and started over twice. I put it down for long stretches (months, in some cases) to work on other projects.  I finally found myself on the home stretch a couple weeks ago and was all set to finish and block when I got to the neckline and everything came to a screeching halt as you may recall from my last post.

I cursed in frustration and put the thing down for a few days. The original boatneck seems to work on everyone else who has made this sweater (according to project pages on Rav), so I think the problem is that I don't have enough of a bust to fill anything out or broad enough shoulders to hold up the neck properly. (You know that saying, "Real women have curves"? I've always hated that because I am not particularly curvy. Does that mean I'm a fake woman or something?)

In any case, I was determined to make this sweater work. I like the design too much to give up! Those asymmetrical cables?! She had me at hello....

So I undid the bind off and kept going for a bit on the neck. I left the front center stitches bound off, but continued back and forth with a couple extra decreases before adding 4 sets of short rows on the back. Then I bound off again and picked up 5 stitches for every 6 with a smaller needle and set to work on the cowl collar, decreasing a bit after an inch or so, and increasing again as I approached the point where the collar would fold over. I switched to bigger needles at the fold, and bigger needles yet about an inch before binding off for good to allow for some flare so the collar would sit right. I was totally and completely winging it but happily, after all the trouble I'd had with everything else up to this point, the collar turned out really nice on the first try. Whew.

We took these pictures on Sunday afternoon. The warmest it got was about 8 degrees with a wind chill of -1, so now you know why my face is red and unhappy. I'm not sure the ugly aluminum siding is a great backdrop for photos, but when it's that cold you don't saunter over to the park. Not worth it!

Pattern: Beekman's Tavern by Thea Coleman
Sticks: size 7 circulars and DPNs for the main knitting; size 6, 7, and 8 for the collar
Mods: neckline, as described above, plus I made the sleeves longer to accommodate my ape arms, lengthened the body just a bit and added some waist shaping to make it look like I have a waist