Res Completa: DROPS Jacket

First of all, many many thanks to Sheepish One and Barefoot Rooster for the reciprocal You Make My Day awards. It's been so fun and uplifting to watch all these good vibes going around knitblogland and I've found some great new blogs, too!

Sooo...I finished my DROPS Jacket, though it did take a little push to start the seaming. Once I got started, though, it seemed to fly by as quickly as the jacket was knit.



Pattern: DROPS A-line Jacket with 3/4 length sleeves (Silke-Alpaca version)
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Classic AL, 9 skeins of black (but I needed 1/4 skein more)
Needles: US 8 32" circular (I like my size 8 circ better than my straights)
Notions: 3 oblong black buttons from Global Beads, bought on my lunch break
Start to Finish: January 13 - 24, 2008



Mods: Not many. I added 1" to the length of the body before starting the armscyes to prevent midriff-baring.

Also, the pattern instructions for the collar tell you to increase by kfb'ing in the outermost stitch, then making a yo which is twisted and knit on the return row. Instead of doing this, I did a kfbf in the outermost stitch, and no yo. Both methods left holes, but the kfbf hole was smaller. In retrospect, I realize it wouldn't have mattered. The holes don't show once the collar is sewn down anyway.

Another deviance I took from the pattern was grafting the shoulders instead of binding them off and seaming them. I've been disappointed in my ability to do shoulder seams lately, so thought I'd leave all the shoulder stitches live, graft them, and see how that went. After blocking, you can't even see the graft! I will be doing this from now on.

Oh, also, I totally ran out of yarn when I was about 3/4 of the way done with the collar, so it's not quite as floppy as in the pattern photo. I was able to get the collar to fit on the button bands with some tricksy blocking and seaming (stopping short on the collar meant its width was not going to match the width of the moss stitch panels to which it was seamed), and I don't think you can really tell, luckily.



Notes: This was the type of project that, once I was done with it, I wore it the next time I left the house. And the time after that. My mother commented that she thought it was my best project yet, and my grandmother scolded me for hiding it by wearing my hair down. EVERYONE should make one of these. It is quick to make and universally flattering. And it's free! Honestly, every single finished version of this jacket I saw on Ravelry was absolutely gorgeous. In particular, this one, this one, and this one. Pretty, pretty, pretty!

P.S. Re: photographing a black garment, I totally know what everyone is talking about now. After taking a few shots of something else, and not changing the camera settings one bit, here's how the first photo of this jacket turned out:

Crazy.