This sweater has been too long in the making for my liking. It’s an Astragal that I started at the very end of December as a BIPOCMAL2019 project. It involves a lot of purling, so I suppose that could be my excuse, but really I just kept getting distracted by other projects that I felt I needed to finish more swiftly.

The pattern is by Ainur Berkimbayeva and it’s well written and easy to follow. I had a slightly larger gauge, so I went down a size in the pattern to get an approximation of what I want and it worked pretty well. I changed a couple of dimensions of the pattern otherwise. This should be a super cropped little number, but I’m not into super crops, so I added length to the body. I also added length to the sleeves, knowing that I would be more likely to wear something with longer sleeves more often in the winter.

The yarn is gorgeous and a squishy delight. It’s Neighborhood Fiber Co. Studio DK in Canton. It’s classified as a DK, but in my opinion it rides a fine line between a DK and a worsted weight yarn. I used all but a tiny bit of the four skeins I purchased. I could have alternated skeins to make the color shifts more even, but I didn’t feel like managing two balls at once, so I let the slight variations happen. This piece seems like it will work well with jeans or possibly layered over a dress.

Now I must resume panic Christmas knitting because I’ve been distracted by other projects…