Any sweater that can be knitted in six days, blocked in three, and finished in less than one, is a pretty great sweater.
According to my notes, I cast on for Caitlin Hunter’s Soldotna Crop on Sunday, March 1, and just wove in the ends on Saturday, March 28; which adds up to 27 days from start to finish, not 10. However, the intervening 17 days were occupied with top-secret work knitting (and, I admit it, my Ammonite top...); in working hours Soldotna was, in fact, completed in ten days. From the top!
This is Monday, March 2, having cast on and worked sporadically the evening before and not done any knitting that morning. I cast on more stitches than the pattern specified in order to widen the neckline, which was only partly successful in the end (more on that below). As you can see, the white is meshing beautifully with the blues at this point.
This is Thursday, March 19; all the knitting to this point was done on March 8 and 15. I was a bit nervous at this stage, as I wasn’t sure how the deep, dusty lavender would play with the blues; but the contrast turned out lovely and unexpected, rather than clashing as I had feared. (The friend who commissioned the sweater never doubted that it would turn out—I must have been a bit too color-intelligent for my own good!) At this point the yoke is essentially done, except for a row or two more of striping.
March 25—the sweater is bound off. The last rush of knitting (lots of stockinette…) happened March 20-22, with the bind-off happening just before bedtime on the 22nd. The color ratios worked out perfectly; the only stress point now is whether the sweater will fit as planned—besides modifying the neck to make it looser, we also lengthened the body to (theoretically) suit my tall friend better than the design as written.
March 28—finished! The washed, blocked fabric smoothed out effortlessly and became even loftier, silkier, and drapier than it had been while knitting. The length hit exactly right; and while the neckline didn’t block out into the wide crew neck that we had hoped for, it was still looser and more comfortable than it would have been had it been knit according to the pattern.
While the instructions were far from the most intuitive or the most detailed instructions I’ve ever worked from, and needed some significant modifications, the project itself was as much fun as Jill the Reckless. I doubt I could wear a sweater of this style and silhouette myself; but I daresay I’d need very little excuse to make another. After all, it would only take 10 days…
