agave sweater, finished

Blocked, seamed, and hanging in the garden! Agave is off the needles. Pleased with this finish and looking forward to wearing it this week. The color, 'buttermilk', is a delightfully cheerful but soft yellow. The fiber content, very soft cotton, makes for a lightweight but draped fabric that seems to hold the lace pattern well. The bottom edge is curling up just a bit, so it will be interesting to see how that goes when I've worn it a few times. The other thing I hope changes with wear is the drape of the sleeves. They haven't quite relaxed into full drape yet, but I suspect they'll soften up and get there; they just came off the blocking board today. 

The pattern, Agave by Yumiko Alexander, was easy to follow and pretty straightforward as far as construction goes. It's knit flat in two panels which are then blocked and joined at the shoulders. The sleeves are picked up and knit flat (!) and blocked into shape. Once that's all done, the sides are seamed. I've not made one like this before but had no trouble. The yarn I used was Jody Long Cottontails which is soft and light and was pleasant in my hands as I worked. I can't say I am a fan of how many times the yarn was knotted though. One ball had at least 3 knots in it. The others weren't quite that bad. Each time I came to a knot I untied or cut it out and left ends to weave in. I don't think the knots would have worked themselves very well into this sea of stockinette stitches. I do like the stitch definition and drape. I suspect if I had gone with a linen yarn as the pattern called for I would have achieved even more drape but this was on SUCH good sale at my LYS during yarn crawl (like $1 a skein I think?) that I decided this was the material for this sweater. I had to scrounge around for one extra ball online at full price (it's discontinued) but overall this was less than $20 of materials which makes me enjoy it even more. 
 

Yellow is not usually my color because it seems to highlight the red tones in my face extremely efficiently but this one works. It's more butter and less marigold. The neckline is kind of interesting since it's just a straight line seam interrupted for a head to go through. I kind of like the resulting boatneck though it has some figuring itself out to do to lie correctly where the lace panel is. It seems to behave differently than the rest of the neckline which makes it wave up a bit. I have confidence it will work out. Would consider making again with the other sleeve option, but these flutter sleeves are really quite fun. More feminine than I am usually comfortable wearing, but still fun. 

On first fit it is comfortable if just a bit fussy in the length department. Being cotton I did not want to make it too long since it should grow over time, but right now I'm wishing for an extra inch or two. Again, not worried and it will work perfectly with flowy pants for now and will look better with the jeans as it grows. This was a fun one, though I don't want to make a sweater knit flat again any time soon! I've learned it's not my joy, even if the finished product is pretty joyful.