Hello all, today’s super-delayed sweater post is not really useful for the northern hemisphere.  If Insta bears any semblance to reality, everyone up here is tossing their worsted wool back into the stash to run full-force into summer knitting. So hi everyone in the southern hemisphere, pull out your needles!  I’ve got a really fun sweater I think you might like to knit.

This is the From Another Place sweater from the Great Northern Knits book by the lovely Leah Coccari-Swift and Teresa Gregorio.  I was a Kickstarter supporter for the book, and was soo excited to Knit All the Things as soon as it came out that I had the yarn (Imperial Yarn Erin) purchased from my then-local yarn store and ready to go.

Then I moved back to Phoenix, the yarn store closed, I had Peanut, and life generally happened.  But I finally got back on track and knitted my sweater!  It was just what I needed this winter: a sweatery sort of sweater, with straightforward top-down raglan construction and a pleasingly repetitive colorwork pattern.  For me, lace and colorwork are all about the regular, interlocking repeats.  Just pop on some music, learn the rules of the repeat, and get into a knitting zone for the next several inches.

Mods: after going full perfectionist and attempting all the mods, I ended up ripping back and knitting as designed.  One exception: I can never get raglan increases to look tidy next to one another so I moved them two stitches out.  And I should have checked my gauge after switching to black below the colorwork–it pulls in a little bit–but that’s a gauge issue.  Leah’s got that design thing under control and did not need me overthinking her pattern.

I knit this sweater thinking it would be perfect for high-waisted skirts and then proceeded to only wear it with high-waisted jeans until the weather warmed up, and although it doesn’t have that retro Dior look with jeans, I’m pleased with the combo.  I love the fuzzy, cohesive fabric Erin makes–just what I want for my colorwork–but as you can see from the photos it does pill a bit when subjected to baby wrestling.  That’s ok too though, because it’s soft enough to wear without a base layer and the plush side of an old-fashioned clothes brush wipes those pills right off.

It was also a lot of fun supporting these designers, rooting for them through the book-crafting process, and seeing other knitters make their designs their own.  Thanks, Leah and Teresa, for putting Great Northern out there for us.  I hope it doesn’t take me another two years to knit my next Great Northern sweater!

(PS thanks too, Littler Sister, for being my photographer!)