Vodka straight up

If you troll the Ravelry pattern page like I do, you may have noticed that Thea released a new sweater collection last week. It's called The Vodka Collection, and she collaborated with YOTH Yarns to have everything ready in time for Stitches West, which I believe wraps up this weekend.

I test knit Vodka Straight Up. Because I rarely say no to Thea when she asks for testers, this is the sixth sweater I did for her in 2016 (though I didn't get it finished until January of this year). As with all of Thea's patterns, this one is extremely well-written with clear instructions and good suggestions for making sure the sweater fits the way you want it to as you go along.

I did not use the yarn called for (YOTH Father) because I wanted to use up stash instead. Stash reduction is a noble pursuit, but if I'm going to be completely honest, I have not been so good at it lately, such as when I went to an end-of-year sale at my favorite yarn shop in Kentucky on my birthday. I fell down pretty hard there. No regrets.

Still, when I started this sweater in November, I was on track with the whole using up stash business. I used Mountain Mohair from Green Mountain Spinnery (which, incidentally, I bought on sale at that same yarn store several years ago!) 

The pattern is a basic cardigan knit from the top down with fitted sleeves. There are a couple options for the stripes in the body: either simple color work with a contrasting color (which you can see when you look at the pattern page), or textured stripes in moss stitch. Obviously, I chose the latter. Colored stripes would have been lovely, but I didn't have another yarn that would go with the Mountain Mohair, so I went with the textured stripes.

I really like this sweater. I love how light and airy the yarn feels. It's quite warm and not even itchy (sometimes an issue with mohair). The fit is very good and, I think, flattering. I did have a minor issue with puckering along the sleeve increases, as you can see if you look closely at the photos.  My gauge was right for both row and stitch count on size 9 needles, so that must have had something to do with my yarn choice because none of the other testers experienced it. It bugs me a little, but not enough to rip the entire thing out and redo it. I did wet block the whole sweater already, but I wonder if another soak would help those stitches relax a little more.

See my new t-shirt? #onewomanriot I got it here.

I would like to knit the other sweaters in this collection. If I get around to it, I'd like to use YOTH Father because it seems like wonderful yarn. 

Welp, I think that's all I have to say about this one. Go check out the Vodka Collection! Keep scrolling for more photos. We only had five minutes in our muddy back yard last weekend, so this is the best I could do.