Shelda's “MTAS”
I had such fun knitting my “More Than a Sweatshirt!” It was a perfect winter knit, warm and cozy on my lap, and it was the only thing I could concentrate on when I had the flu!
While I thought the yarns used in Sidna Farley's original sweater were gorgeous, I was concerned about how warm they would be to wear, and I decided I wanted a cotton yarn for my sweater. I found a lovely closeout yarn at Elann, Silk City Softball 2.2N, 90% cotton and 10% nylon, and used two colors held together.
I did a fair bit of “fiddling” with the pattern: recalculated the numbers and added a shrinkage allowance based on the gauge I got with my swatch, plotted the raglan increases with a spreadsheet to come out with exactly what I wanted, added Elizabeth Zimmermann's “phoney seams,” and added short rows at the bust and behind.
I was a bit anxious to wash this sweater for the first time because I had knit it significantly longer than the finished measurements I wanted to account for the 25% shrinkage in length I got when I laundered my swatch. When I tried the sweater on before washing, the sleeves hung down well past the ends of my fingers. But I took a deep breath and washed it, and the sweater did just what my swatch had predicted. Yeah! I couldn't be happier with the fit, and my sweater is just as cozy and comfy as I had imagined it could be!
Thanks to Sidna Farley for designing such a terrific sweater and to all the Ample-Knitters who participated in this project. A special thanks goes to Ann Cannon-Brown of Elann for rescuing me from a last-minute yarn dilemma!