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Also known as My Favorite Sweater Ever! When I saw Norah Gaughan’s Beatnik in the new Knitty Deep Fall, I went to the yarn shop immediately after work to buy as much tweed as it would take for me to have. that. sweater. Luckily L&B had just received a shipment of Berroco Blackstone Tweed (I wanted to go with a woolly tweed instead of the Remix called for in the pattern) – it was spread out in the middle of the room, and I had my pick! Awesome! I came home with 10 balls of the Ancient Mariner (2603) color, and cast on for my swatch immediately.

As is usually the case, I needed a much smaller needle than the yarn calls for – i.e. Blackstone Tweed calls for a US size 7 needle aaaaand I needed a US 3 to get gauge. Oh well, I’m getting used to it! : )  Also, I can only look off camera in one direction.  I’m serious, stay tuned . . .

I decided to knit the sweater in the round and do seamless set in sleeves. Basically, I hate seaming so I don’t do it if it can be helped in any way. I knit the body in the round up to the armhole shaping, then worked the sleeves in the round up to the armhole shaping. On the sleeves and the body, I worked short rows instead of binding off stitches, then placed the stitches that would have been bound off on waste yarn to seam up later. Oh, and the armhole shaping for the sleeves and the body doesn’t match, so I used the shaping for the armhole for both (i.e. put the same number of stitches on waste yarn at the underarms and then decreased on the body as set out for the sleeve caps). After decreasing, I worked straight until [rows left to work on the body (excluding the shoulder shaping rows)] = [1/2 the number of sleeve sts]. I worked short rows to shape the sleeve cap (based on the bind off directions from the pattern). At this point each piece (fronts and back) needed to be worked separately, with one stitch from the sleeve cap being consumed on every row of the body. After that, all I had to do was seam the shoulders (ok, there’s some seaming, but it’s minimal) and pick up the collar as in the pattern.  Alright, that paragraph is long – I hope it makes some sense.

I’m so happy with the result!  After blocking, my Beatnik fits perfectly and I love, love, love the stand-up, boatneck collar.  Wearing it makes me feel very Mad Men!  : )  Oh, and I was worried about having enough yarn (for my size, I would have needed 11 balls to meet the pattern yarn requirement), but I turned out to only need 8 plus a very tiny bit of the 9th ball of yarn.  So now I’ve got some yarn left over to make a matching . . . something!  Hmm . . . what would Joanie wear?

I love my sweater!!!!

Yes, that’s my bathroom.  Please don’t judge, it’s hard to find good lighting in the house, but I wanted to show off the collar.  : )

Knit this sweater!  Now!  Do it!  You won’t regret it!  : )