Blue Bell Sweater

A long, long time ago, one of my favorite blog writers posted this pattern for the Bluebell Sweater. You can see her sweater on the linked page. You can also see the date, June 2014, for her post, it's now March 2015. I've spent nearly 9 months birthing this baby.

Look at that! Who wouldn't want one of those in a heather lavender over a grey wool skirt? Am I right?

Yeah...so off to the yarn shop...the only one in town...where the younger generation is apparently discovering knitting....thus I have a chunky, fuzzy, neon nest of acrylic selections from which to choose, because we all know that knitting a scarf should take no longer than an episode of "Suburgatory".

Finding anything worthy of knitting narrows the selection down to one brand and finding enough skeins in a single dye lot narrows it to two colors. I will not be making the long sleeve version.

This is the color I chose, teal? peacock? blue? I'm not sure exactly how I'd describe it. It does seem to be a nice wool and the label says washable. Now on to the next problem...

Lovely lady Lucy is in England. English patterns and needles are different sizes than mine. In fact, half of my needles are US and the other half are Belgian and I've long ago forgotten which are which. This means that gauge testing is extremely important for me. Throw in the fact that we, well, I am taller, larger...okay... fatter than the typical 1940's lady and there's nearly a complete pattern rewrite in that somewhere.

 Let's just say, I used the directions as a guide line and went my own way. The pattern repeat is over 36 rows. Quite a bit of knitting and ripping went on before I had my sweater going well. I, like Lucy, experienced the lacy like quality of the pattern. The sweater needs a camisole under it. My wool had a lot of stretch to it and my sweater doesn't fit as tightly as Lucy's or the model on the pattern leaflet. This is probably a good thing for me.

 Here's the finished sweater on my dress form, "Judy", without a camisole. You can see the blousing around the waist and in the sleeves. The wool is so soft and stretchy, if I had tightened up the tension, I really believe the sweater would shrink with the first wearing.  I'll have to live with the new silhouette.

Here it is on me. It's pretty, just not trim and form fitting as I'd like and...No, I'm not reknitting this one again. Overall, considering the hurdles and my inexperience with knitting...I have a wearable sweater. Is it as trim and neat as the original photo? No, not by a long shot. Would I try it again? Yes, in a cotton, silk, or rami blend but only after I visited a well stocked, English yarn shop for some advice.