Long time no see

I just noticed that it has been more than three years since I posted the last time. So here’s something I spent my time with since then. At least lately. I found a motif on Pinterest and turned it into a sweater.
This is my Shetland Blues:

After kind of blood, sweat and tears I had a final result yesterday. And I‘m rather proud of it. So here are some of the steps of the way I got there.
Last year I spent two weeks in Shetland  knitting and hiking and had a wonderful time. That’s where I got my yarn - Croft Shetland Tweed from Jamieson and Smith plus Double Knit from Uradale yarns so it had to be a special project. Then I stumbled over an interesting motif on Pinterest. After some brainstorming I just took my knitting needles and took off, rather naively.

The pattern

First pattern part

Knitting in the round, holding the colors left and right. It worked out quite well. I added the steek for the armholes and switched the colors in the upper part, let the pattern fade away nearing the neckline.  

So far so good.

Then I discovered that the armholes were way too big and the sleeves would be kind of bat wings which wasn't what I had intended. 

After circling around this „thing“ for days I knew I had to change something.I took it apart at the middle of the pattern after the color change.

Separations

The idea was to change this to a yoke sweater with the sleeves continuing the pattern after being inserted. Well, that proofed to be not so easy. When I did the first one and had the pattern drawn out and colored I didn't notice that half of the motif was missing. The finished sleeve fitted perfectly into one side but not onto the other. So I ripped it. Actually I did four sleeves in the end. The first before I got the insight to make a yoke sweater, the second that was ripped and the two fitting ones. Hah!

To be on the really safe side I made the drawing of the complete sleeve. 

This time it worked correctly. 

 

The next thing was to work out how to get the needed decreases for the yoke. I liked the previous idea with letting the pattern fade which helped with the yoke decreases, too. A braid and a crocheted slipstich line around the neck looked good. The back of the neck is higher because I added some short rows. I changed the bottom to a braided rib band and here it is in all its glory. What an adventure this was and it is going to continue, since there is still that seperated top plus one sleeve to turn into something wearable. Do I need to tell that I ran out of yarn again 😂

See you!