I finally finished this sweater in the Sky Lounge at the Minneapolis airport on Sunday. I had started it a few weeks ago and then prioritized other projects for a variety of reasons. Then I became obsessed with finishing because I saw just how awesome this was going to be. This yarn is from Miss Babs and is the Popsicle Fun colorway. The pattern is my own.


Stitches:
Hdc – half double crochet
V stitch – 2 hdc in the same stitch, skip the next stitch
The back and the sides in the popsicle stick color are just rectangles. This pattern uses a 5 mm hook. Cast on enough to make the length that you want. I cast on 100 stitches. The pattern for the back and the sides is a row of hdc then two rows of v-stitch. I repeated the back 12 times and the sides 4 times. This made my back about 21 inches wide and the sides about 9 inches wide. I left a about 3 inches at the bottom not sewed and 8 inches for the arms.




Next I worked on the arms. I had all the pretty colors to work from! I decided to go from light to dark. I did the same pattern (1 row hdc then 2 rows of v stitch) and did 5 rows of each color. I went back and forth on this, but I figured out that with the length of my arms this was the right number of stitches. I did this for all of the colors except the last one. I am possibly a little too organic when I make my sleeves, but I don't decrease until the sleeve is about the length of my elbow and then I just gauge how much I want to taper in each row.
For the last color I cast on 18 stitches and then alternated hdc and back loop hdc. I made it the same number of rows as I had stitches in the bottom of my sleeve - 20. Then sew the top and bottom together and then to the sleeve.




Next I made the pockets. I knew I wanted to use as much yarn as possible in the collar and I didn't want to run out. I measured my hand against the sweater and decided I wanted my pockets to be 18 stitches deep so I cast on 18. I also knew that I wanted them to be about 10 rows wide and that I only had 7 colors so I picked 3 colors to do 2 rows vs 1. Same pattern - 1 row hdc and then 2 rows v-stitch.


Last but not least the collar! I had more of some yarn than others based on how much I had used in the arms and the pockets. I started light to dark again and used the same pattern I used for the bottom of the sleeves - 1 row of hdc and 1 row of back loop hdc. You want the sweater to be right side out and then start at the bottom left corner. You go up the side, across the back, down the other side - and repeat. For the colors I had less of I didn't worry if it ended mid row, I just switched colors. You can't tell unless you're looking at it really hard. I ended up with 15 rows for my collar. I kept trying it on to decide how it felt and how much more I needed.

As always when I make a new sweater it becomes my new favorite. This one is light enough to wear when its a bit warm. I wore it to a work event and got tons of compliments.