gathered pullover

About two years ago when I discovered the wonders of ordering yarn from online, it was like the world has opened up... I mean back when I was in my teens and knitted a lot, but yarn was scarce and expensive (for me at least- still back then it was actually cheaper to knit something than to buy a ready made knitted item), and good yarn was even more elusive than it is now. (At least these days there is like one type of DK pure wool (merino blend at that) in the only yarn wholesaler, and there is one or two three types of pure wool in the BURDA shop.) Anyway back then I was dreaming... and I dreamt that when I will be grown up and rich, I will have a house, and in that one I will have a craft room with sewing machines and supplies, and I will have a shelf, the type they have in yarn stores with little niches for yarn, and in each of those niches I will have different, sweater's worth of yarns. I grew up-kind of , but I am no way rich, but now I have a sewing room. It is way too small to store all my fabric and yarn stash, therefore the yarns reside in my bedroom now. BUT the stash is big enough and diverse enough so when some fancy hits me I can knit almost any type of knitting... I have thick yarn, lace yarn, sock yarn... I have yarns I know exactly what I want to do with, but there is some I got because it was a nice color, it was some nice wool, or it had a good price.

So was the case of a pack that has been lying in the bottom of one of the bins. It was medium heathery purple, sock/sport weight... I liked it very much, but I had absolutely no idea what to make from it... Until one time flipping through IK the gathered pullover got caught in my mind... Then looked through the FOs in Ravelry and I knew this is it. Also looking through the FOs in Ravelry helped me to decide on a couple of modifications.These were:

I don't like rolled edges... I know I don't like garter stitch either, but a few rows edging is an exception. I did six rows of garter stitch at the edge of the body and the sleeves and the band for the neckline.I made the body longer. Eliminated the decrease-increase across the boobs, but added waist shaping.

Added half of the motif on the back.

Due to rowing in my teenage years I have wide back and thicker than average upper arms. To accommodate them I did bigger armholes, and wider sleeves.

I also do not like three quarter sleeves, or sleeves that look grown out. Therefore I lengthened the sleeves, and made them slightly trumpet shaped (cast on six stitches more than necessary and decrease the, before starting to increase). Because of the different stitch count I fudged the sleeve cap a bit.

While on the stockinette part this was my "take out" knitting. I absolutely love the cable motif.

I knitted the sleeves two at the same time in two circulars... Now that was no fun. As much finishing the two sleeves at once intrigues me (there is no second sleeve syndrome, and I don't have to try and figure out where did I what), the constant changing of balls, needles, rearranging them, pulling them annoyed the heck out of me.But all in all I absolutely LOVE the finished sweater.