Stranded colorwork knitting has become one of my favorite things to knit.
Caitlin Hunter of Boyland Knits is also one of my favorite designers. Like so many others, I have made many of her sweaters and love each and every one. Recently she released the Soldotna Crop Sweater which is shown here. I was not sure how I would feel about a crop but thought I could always lengthen the body (never been afraid of modifying as you will soon see) so I decided to grab some yarn from my stash to see what I could come up with.
I quickly realized that I have lots of fingering weight yarn and not much DK which is the weight the pattern is written for.
I just decided to go with what I had and picked out colors. This is what I ended up picking out (pic shown is after sweater completed). I started out with full skeins of variegated, pink and gold with a smaller amount of the gray. The colors I picked made a low contrast colorwork look but I liked how they played together.
I swatched a couple times to get an idea of the differences in gauge and also what the fabric would look like. I decided to go down a needle size and go up a sweater size. That combo worked out perfectly. So I got started.
The pattern calls for a 2x2 ribbing for the neckline but after knitting it up, I decided to rip it out and use an I-cord cast on instead. From there I knit the pattern as written and enjoyed every stitch and tried it on several times to make sure things were going as planned. Since the body was going to be knit with variegated yarn, I decided to skip the color work and go with straight stockinette. I zoomed through it and quickly was able to bind off and knit up the sleeves.
The sleeves are very small and basically just a 2x2 rib. I knit them as written and then decided to rip them back and add a bit more sleeve and a stripe before the ribbing. In all, I only added an inch but it makes quite a difference for me personally.
I am thrilled with the final product and am already casting on another one with more stash yarn! I will be sharing my progress here and on InstaGram if you would like to follow along. All the details of my sweater are on my Ravelry Project page
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/AnnTudor/soldotna-crop.