Finished - la Morgat

I understand now why knitters often drag their heels when finishing up a garment - its the weaving in of all those damn little ends. So very tedious. Anyway, I've finished my next Beginner Knitter Phase 2 Garment, the Morgat sweater by Army of Knitters. I'm both pleased with it and meh about it. I really like the knitting-in-the-round top down method, and it's a very good pattern for beginners but the final product is probably not something I would buy and therefore I'm not sure I will be wearing it much:

My first issue is my fault/choice - the yarn. I really struggled to get a cream Aran weight cotton, and had to settle for this beige Sirdar Simply Recycled, which is 50% recycled cotton, and 50% acrylic. The lady at my local yarn shop told me very nicely, when I shuddered delicately at the idea of knitting with acrylic, that I had to get over it and that good quality acrylic yarns are much nicer these days.... It was reasonably priced, so I went with it. The blue is called indigo, but it really is more a cornflower blue - quite nice but I really wanted navy. I did think that all that beige up around my face wasn't going to be that flattering, hence my red scarf - there is just no way I'll wear this without something colourful up there. Maybe I should have tried another colour-way but I really wanted to stick with the traditional Breton colours..... c'est la vie!

My second issue is the pattern itself. I made the second smallest size as many reviews on Ravelry complained about the massively wide neckline. It is very wide indeed, and is balanced precariously on my shoulders in these pics - to be wearable I'll need to add bra strap holders otherwise it will be off my shoulders faster than you can say 'Flashdance' and my friends - it will come as no surprise to you that that's just not the way I roll!

The sleeves are knitted in the round just in the standard circular needle method - they are really very wide and I think from memory I made a little mistake with the numbers of stitches and they are actually a little smaller than the pattern states anyway! It's very obvious from the pics on Ravelry that they are loose and wide - they almost look like bell sleeves because of the way they drape. I actually don't mind that but my beloved doesn't really like them.

The pattern uses a cool technique for the stripes - you wrap the yarn twice, and on the next row knit into one loop and drop the next to make a cool long zigzag sort of stripe:

I had to add more length than the pattern states otherwise there'd be very pale muffin top on show - never attractive. If you are also eagle eyed you'd see from the above pic that I stuffed up with my lower stripes and did an extra row of beige each time - meh!

There seems to be a bit of whinging in this post but really I'm not THAT displeased with it - I've learned to pick up stitches, understand now why sleeves have to be knitted either with DPN's or the magic loop method. I will make the effort to add bra strap holders, and we will see how much I wear it.

I also made a great discovery for other beginner knitters out there - Interweave have an e-book called Knit Fix - problem solving for knitters, which is an excellent resource on correcting one's stuff ups. It goes on sale on and off - I think I paid about $8 for it.

And so to my next project! I'm currently fulfilling a promise to my husband to knit him a kombi softie - he bought me the pattern last year when I was learning,  and I've been dragging my heels on it - I'm just way too selfish. Also I was only able to find nasty cheap acrylic in the colours I needed at the time and it's the most feral stuff. Gotta pull my finger out so I can get back to the selfish knitting again!