Introducing: Oakdale

When it comes to my own designs, I never wear them until I have a chance to do the official photoshoot because I want to keep them as pristine as possible for the pattern photos, and for this particular design the weeks between completion and photography were super tempting.

I designed Oakdale as my dream sweater, and it turned out pretty much exactly as I hoped: as in crazy-close to the original sketch. The only difference is the neckline, which is more boatneck than crew (which I prefer).

Still in my colorwork period, it started off with an acorn motif and a desire to do a 40s-50s style sweater.  I wanted it to be seamless and easy to knit, so I decided to do it as a raglan sweater, and since I hadn't decided what I wanted the neckline to be I started at the bottom and worked my way up, figuring I'd decide by the time I got there.

There's no shaping in the body of the sweater, but 1-2 inches of negative ease, plus the nature of the colorwork stripes, makes for a shapely-looking sweater. If you wanted to make it even MORE shapely, you could switch the Stockinette stripes for corrugated ribbing easily.

The front and back are entirely the same until after the yoke decreases are completed, then there are a little over an inch of short rows on the back neck to raise it up a bit higher than the front for comfort in wearing. The sleeves, neck and hem are all finished off in a K1, P2 rib that mirrors the striping pattern.

For the sample I used Cascade 220 in Chocolate Heather, Smoke Blue and Straw. But it would work in any worsted weight yarn with a reasonable color range.

A big shout out must be given to Bristol Ivy, fiber artist, who served as color consultant, photographer and tech editor for this pattern.  And a mini shout out to the Canal School in Westbrook, which served as a charming autumnal backdrop, when our original location fell through.

The pattern is written for sizes 30 (32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58)”/ 76 (81.5, 86.5, 91.5, 96.5, 101.5, 106.5, 112, 117, 122, 127, 132, 137, 142, 147.5) cm at the bust and is perfect for your next sock hop or pep rally.

Oakdale is available for purchase for $7.00 USD

or you can queue it up on Ravelry.

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Putting it all Together

So since the last time I posted, a number of things have happened.

1. We moved into the new place and are slowly making an empty apartment into a home (a big shout-out to our Portland friends who are letting us mooch their unwanted furniture!)
2. Mr. Cleaver got some part-time work as adjunct faculty at the community college
3. I got a call for my first job interview, which happens on Monday afternoon and there's a good chance I'll get another interview this week (I know a guy).

It feels good to be in our own place. The neighborhood is great, our landlords are super nice and it's a solid apartment. I'll post some photos once it gets a little more settled. So far I've managed to get a few things on the walls and my sewing machine on my desk, but no clothes out a suitcase. We all have our own priorities.

I went to a new knitting circle on Tuesday, I'll have to give it a few more tries to see if it's a good personality fit or not. It was a really small gathering, so I'm not sure it was representative, but we'll see.

Other than that, knitting's been on the backburner to unpacking, but I did finally take some photos of WIPs to share.

The photo above is the Forecast cardigan. A surprisingly simple knit, with more purling than I'd like, but I really enjoy the pattern. I'm knitting it in Cascade 220 Heather and I am really enjoying this yarn. It's very spriongy!

This scarf I haven't worked on since Chicago, but I thought I'd photograph it too. It's my "Seed-Stitch Self-Striping Striped Scarf." It's not very interesting to knit and I dislike making scarves in general, but I loved the colors and wanted something simple to display them. The blue-green color is particularly special since it's the Edgewater colorway from Lorna's Lace, which is my old Chicago neighborhood. The Purple is called Black Purl. It's just a nubbly scarf, but I like it. I might pull tassles on at the ned, but we'll see, I still have a lot of length to knit.

We don't have internet in the apartment yet, so the posting may still be spotty for a while. But keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow!