Silk Garden Sweater

Knit from the top down, I took advantage to use every last yard of this yarn that I had (6 skeins, 816 yards). This yarn had been sitting in my stash since about 2006 (I found the postmark with the yarn). Then it only took a week exactly to finish, since the Noro is a lot of fun to knit. And now the sweater has actually been finished since March. Apparently the knitting is the short step in this process.

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Lite in colorway 2023
Fiber Content: 45% Silk, 45% Mohair, 10% Wool
Yarn supplier: Carodan Farm Wool Shop
Needles: US 4 - 3.5 mm
Pattern: Margot by Linden Heflin
Size: XS with modifications

Modifications: (You knew there would be some right?)

In order to maximize matching, I set aside two balls that clearly had well matched color repeats. I knit the yoke, and then worked the sleeves so that I could fudge the color sequence best with the rest of the yarn if I needed to. Then once that was done, I knit the body. For the whole sweater I made sure that whenever I added a new ball that I chose an end that would blend color-wise so there would not be a hard transition.

I know I used a different number of increases in the yoke, but I just kept trying it on until it was as big as I wanted it. Similarly, I added a lot more waist shaping than the original pattern, changed the length of the waist section, and added slightly more more increases for the hips than there were decreases for the waist. Slightly less ease on the bust is after all more flattering than on the hips. Also sleeves were lengthened and given some shaping after the elbow.

The beauty of this sort of knitting is you can try it on as you go and customize for your body. The result? One of the most wearable sweaters I have knit.