Apsara

I finished this sweater over a week ago, but guess who was too lazy to take photos until now?
The yarn used was Quince & Co, Chickadee, a sports weight yarn. One of my favorite yarns for sweaters.

First I made up the stitch motif at the bottom thinking perhaps a sweater, but unsured.  Once the swatch was done, I had a fairly good idea what I was going to do with it.  I knew it would be slightly loose fitting with gentle gathering above chest line, and set-in sleeves to be picked up around armhole.

I first thought about working it top down, but since I swatched the motif from bottom up, I decided against spending more time to re-swatch and re-chart. The motif used cable and few eyelets.  

The sweater construction was seamless, worked in round from hem to underarm, then divided front and back at underarm.  There is a slight overlap at the front V neck.  I used 3 needle BO to join front and back at shoulders. Sleeve stitches were picked up around armhole, then after a round of decrease, short rows were worked to create the sleeve cap, and rest of the sleeves were worked in round. Finally, the collars was picked up stitches around the V neck and shaped with short rows.

The sleeves took me 3 tries to get it to look right. I had bulbous shape near cuff at first, and I just didn't like it, it looked ridiculous. I changed it to bell shape but it ended up too long, I had to shortened it by ripping back and redo the cuff at higher point.

How much do I like it?  I absolutely love it. I love the hem, the neckline, and the cuffs.

One thing though, I'm a bit embarrassed by my not so perfect knitting skill.  The picked up sts for the sleeves took 2 tries to make sure I picked up sts consistently from the same legs.  The way I knit creates not the most even tension fabric, hence not the most photogenic with close-ups. I knit English style but without yarn wrapping around my finger to keep even tension. Not to make too many excuses, but I have the so called "trigger finger" that my middle finger of my right hand gets locked up very often when I bend it. It's rather painful each time I forced it straight by forcefully bending it back up. But if I don't do that, the finger stays locked up for days in the bent position.
Well, and I'm not proud to say that even though I'm embarrassed, I still have very little desire to get better with knitting perfect fabric.

Can I just say I'm happier with my design skills than my knitting skills.