Packing

When I fist saw Elizabeth Zimmermann's green sweater in  Twist Collective, I knew I had to make it. Took a bit of celestial alignment - I picked up the pattern in Wisconsin and knew I needed something warm for Iceland* - but here it is.It really is hard for me to knit anything as written. But I didn't make many changes on this one; decided on ribbing as a hem treatment instead of a facing and narrowed the sleeves slightly by removing an inch for the armhole depth. I alternated decreases every 2nd round then every 3rd round for a longer sleeve, since the length of the sleeve is dictated by the number of stitches picked around the armhole and I had picked up fewer.The pic above is a little fuzzy, but shows something I always, always do when working armhole steeks - work a three needle bind off before finishing my steeks with crochet and cutting them open. The resulting steek flows over the shoulder.For giggles, I tried something new this time and picked up stitches for the sleeves through a column of stitches. It worked - the little facing created by the steek selvedge is forced to the wrong side and lies flat without any steaming or blocking whatsoever. I love it when things work as anticipated.I also experimented with picking up both the right side and wrong side of the faced neckband using two circulars - most of my finishing is done at night and visibility with such a dark colour can be an issue. Instead of sewing down the live stitches, doing it this way allowed me to close the neckband using kitchener stitch.Only buttons and loops are left to sew on! Which is excellent because I am leaving for Iceland tomorrow morning! I will be posting often, because I promised my family I would - my favourite cousin might even make an appearance in the comments!*yes, I have other sweaters. I just needed a NEW one!