For my birthday this year I treated myself to some lovely Shilasdair yarn from Wisp one of my LYSes. Then my friend Martha gifted me with the lovely Manu pattern. I cast on for the sweater while driving (ok riding) to Massachusetts to introduce the boy to my extended family he hadn’t yet met and to visit some he had met. 🙂
On our way to see my family we made a stop at Bully Hill in the finger lakes to pick up sown wine for ourselves and our parents – due to Ohio laws we can’t get this wine at home unless a distributor carries it. So funny story due to the natural dyes in the yarn it would turn my hands purple whenever I knit with it. When we went in to do the wine tasting the guy asked me of I had been playing in the grapes already that morning. 😉
One of the great fortunes of having wonderful family in western Massachusetts is that they live about 15 minutes from Webs. My Aunt Millie always assumes that will be one of the stops during my visits and this trip.was no different. When I was a little stuck on the length for my sweater we went to Webs and Erin ever so kindly helped me decide how much longer to make it.
I knit on it for the majority of our travel time and while watching the Royal Wedding. When we got back my work travel began ramping up for a summer of travel. (Little did I know my fall would be even busier!) I knit the sleeves, attached them and took a great deal of time to knit the yoke. The yoke has a lot of stitches per row AND has extra fabric since the neck is pleated. I also would only knit on it when it wasn’t weird for my hands to be purple. Then came the fun of doing the pleats. I really like how the pleats turned out and I copied a few people on Ravelry to make my pleats facing in the back.
There was a bit of a lag on production while I waited for some great buttons to arrive from Orit in Israel.
Manu bound off
The last piece was an i-cord bind off which I sadly finished at the boy’s great aunt’s funeral. Well the family gathering afterward not the service. This sweater will be special up me since I also knit on it while we were attending his grandmother’s funeral in May. Both ladies were very special to the boy and to me and both were Knitters.
I am really pleased with how this sweater turned out. I elected to not knit pockets since I was almost out of yarn! :-O
It’s taken awhile to get FO shots but we finally got them done.
