FO: Roo

Here, finally, is the Spanish Inquisition's new purple sweater-coat:

The penguin buttons/bribe totally worked; she loves them, and they don't disrupt the pattern too much (and the button band makes the jacket close fully, which is good).  I originally envisioned it as an early fall jacket, but it's too cold for that now, so she gets to wear it as a cardigan. Which is fine. She's worn it a couple of times since Thanksgiving, and it fits perfectly — which makes me feel a bit better for insisting on re-knitting it in the 24" size, as this means that the original (22") really was far too small. I would have preferred a longer length, but it's hard to adjust on the fly.

This coat has a garter border at the bottom of the coat and somehow, I managed to knit a different number of rows for the back and the two fronts — and not notice until seaming. This means that I even blocked it without noticing the discrepancy. Luckily the fabric is very dark (this photograph was taken in nearly-full sun), and the Spanish Inquisition moves around a lot, so I don't think anyone will notice. But I'm a little appalled that I managed to do that. It's not like the pattern doesn't give me the exact number of rows I should be aiming for.

The only other problem was that the penguin buttons are very, very skinny, so they kept slipping out of the buttonholes as knit. (I used a simple double yarnover-k2tog). I sewed the holes tighter when we got home after Thanksgiving, and now they're fine.

The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca, which is 50% wool and 50% alpaca, in the imaginatively named "Deep Purple," between 2.5 and 3 skeins. 4.5mm needles. The pattern is Roo from Twist Collective, by Kate Gilbert.