lazy summer holiday

While Fiver and Guinness enjoyed a lazy day's nap in the hammock, I sat down to finish my Sunrise Circle Jacket, which, as it turned out, really only needed hemming and seaming. It seems the end-weaving fairy had paid me a visit, because I don't remember weaving in all the ends myself?!

An afternoon passed and an instant favourite was born!

Little can be added to the many previous glowing reviews of this pattern, by Kate Gilbert for Interweave Knits (and kindly made available for free by IK here!). The construction is so clever and makes the miles and miles of stocking stitch not just bearable but exciting! I love finishing a cardigan with only three pieces, and working the sleeves and fronts together as one piece. The instructions are simple and clear, not overly complex, especially considering the really wierd shape of the finished pieces.

Here are some of my favourite details:

The raglan shaping

The high collar formed by the two front semi-circles overlapping

The stitch pattern created by increasing for the front

I tried to be painstaking about my hemming.

Looking back, I can see this project received nary a mention while it was in progress. I'm not sure why that is. I started it back in June when I needed something I could work on without looking during the wee hours of the morning staying up (or waking up specifically to see) Australia's World Cup matches. I continued to work on it without looking through much of the Sydney Swans 2006 season, but found I got a bit too stressed out during the finals series to knit. (But note that the jumper is a very appropriate colour to wear to 2007 Swans matches!) A couple of long train trips to Newcastle for wedding dress fittings provided the perfect excuse to finish the knitting off. And then it sat around till now.

The yarn is one of my more successful salvage projects. Originally it was a 100% cotton Gap sweater, men's size large, all red with a white stripe. I lost some yarn in the ripping, as the plies of cotton were at times very wayward. Miraculously no fiddling around with gauge was required. I was a bit worried about running out of yarn towards the end, so you can see above that I knitted the hem facing of the back piece in the white yarn. This turned out to be a good move, as I have less than 10 grams left (a golf-ball sized ball) of the red, out of a total 810 grams I started with! Of course, I resorted to the knit-faster method toward the end and disaster was averted.

As you can see here, my Sunrise Circle Jacket is currently buttonless. I rang my local button store and was disappointed to hear that they are on a short Christmas break, and won't re-open until January 2nd. I suppose they deserve a holiday too. But it's definitely finished enough to wear, and after a big day of hemming and seaming, there's nothing more rewarding than a nap in the hammock in your new jumper!

Edited to add more photos:
Now with buttons!

Here's the original Gap jumper which was recycled into this Sunrise Circle Jacket:

In cleaning out the scraps from the 'recycling bin' I found the original price tag- the jumper cost me only $3 ! (But the buttons drastically inflated the cost of the finished object - they were $8.)