I was surfing FB when I saw a gorgeous black cotton knitted jacket... I immediately asked my knitters group if they knew about some similar pattern and Esther, one of my fellow knitters, pointed me towards Kim Hargreaves' Heartfelt book. What a bunch of gorgeous projects! I was totally in love with quite a few of them... and then this shrug came as a total need.
It was a really fast knit, with a gorgeous wool, in a wonderful color...and it perfectly matched my two Joni dresses.
It took me a month knitting only on the weekends. I made the sleeves in circular needles and went up a size to make for my tight knitting and big boobs. It resulted perfect sizing.
I enjoyed every stitch of this project. It is awesome, and I can't wait to make more Hargreaves patterns, next one is gonna be the gorgeous cotton jacket that brought me to this book.
I bought these two yarns in the Barcelona Knit Fair, back in November 2019. I was inspired by Soc una troca stand, it seemed to me they got all the ticks in the correct boxes. I was inspired by Laia, the girl who designs and dyes all their yarns in a small, rural little place in Catalonia. She was wearing a beautiful stripped dress and I found the perfect combo in Merino/silk and Mohair. It was quite expensive, but all good things are, aren't they?I decided to follow Ann Budd's instructions to make a V-neck sweater with gathered sleeve caps, which was my design and idea. I explain in Ravelry my adventures in the process of making this project, which took a whole year and some weeks... because I stopped the whole summer to make my black cotton dress, it is a small gauche and I had to undo and redo several parts of it. (sleeve cap, sleeve bottom, bodice bottom, and neck!) It was a little exhausting. Having the freedom to make your own design is wonderful, but if it might be a bendy road.All in all I am quite satisfied, but not 100% happy. I might have ended up fed up with all the testing and redoing. For example, the bodice bottom cast off is too tight (easy to mend), or the neck maybe too closed (I could redo it with the same needles as the rest of the sweater, instead of going down one number).I have worn it twice to work, and it is comfortable, because being very thin, it is very warm, so I expect to give it a good wear... time will say. I also made this bodysuit (my own pattern following Aldrich's book) in cotton LICRA. I always wear one of these under my woolen sweaters.
