Quite a few of you picked out the tree jacket from the Gretel photos yesterday – so here’s the official report!
Tree Jacket
Pattern: Tree Jacket from Zephyr Style
Yarn: The Fibre Company Terra in Acorn, every bit of 8 skeins
Needles: Denise US 8
This one took less than a week to knit! Now that’s a quick sweater. The yarn’s definitely captivating, plus the pattern’s simple and chunky enough that I was able to get it out really quickly.
Modifications:
As I posted about before, I was pretty short on yarn. I had seven matching skeins, plus the one pinky one – it seems to have worked out fine! I could’ve done the smallest size, as it turns out (and I’m 36″, so it was a gauge issue) and then I might’ve been able to make the sleeves longer or something.
I knit the second size and it’s a bit baggy under the arms. I do love the garter stitch yoke, and I even love the jog at the beginning of the round.
The biasing of the lace in the body is really flattering! That was a nice surprise. I ended up using three skeins of yarn for the yoke, another 2.75 for the lace in the body (plus a bit of the pinky one for the ribbing) and then the remaining 1.25 skeins for the sleeves.
It was a bit hairy – I knit the body long enough, and added a couple extra rounds of ribbing to make sure it wouldn’t roll. Then I weighed the remaining yarn and knit both sleeves at the same time (okay, alternating every couple rounds) and decreasing right away – the pattern has you do quite a few inches straight before decreasing. I managed four decreases before running out of the matching yarn.
Then I switched to the pinky skein and to stockinette, and just kept going until I was out of yarn. The sleeve length actually works really well for me, so I’m happy. And no leftovers!
I loved knitting this sweater, and it turned out great. What more can a knitter ask for?
Leave a Reply