Ready for Berry Season

It's done, and it's adorable!

Pattern: Berry Season Cardigan by Heidi Atwood-Reeves
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash (100% superwash wool) in Berry Pink/color 837
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm) circulars
Started/Completed: June 1/June 19
Mods: used a regular cast on and bind off instead of the tubular cast on and bind off specified in the pattern

This sweet little sweater was such fun to knit. Once I got past the initial bit of a mental block about doing the lace (including decreases) on wrong side rows, it was smooth sailing. I even learned a new thing -- how to do German short rows! I did try to do the tubular cast on at the beginning, but I failed miserably. I'll give it another go another time.

The sweater is completely seamless. It starts with the body, working from the bottom up. Once the underarms are reached, stitches are bound off and then the fronts and back are worked separately. The shoulders are joined with a three-needle bind off, and then stitches are picked up around the armscye for the sleeve. The sleeve cap is shaped with short rows and then the sleeve is worked in the round to the cuffs. There were quite a few ends to weave in, but there was no sewing up to do at the end.

Rainbow picked out the buttons herself at my LYS. I thought she'd go with something a little wilder, but it seems she is taking after her mother in her preference for simple neutrals.

I will say that my gauge was a little off (I think I had an extra quarter stitch per inch, or something like that), but I knew that, because I was using a superwash wool, the finished sweater was likely to stretch out a bit when I washed it (and it did). Plus, I made Rainbow a size 6 even though she probably could have fit into a 4. The fit is spot on now, and there's definitely room to stretch it out if we need to in the future.

The final say in the success of this project, though, belongs Rainbow herself. She is thrilled with it, so naturally I'm as happy as can be!