I totally have the dorkiest smile.

The Central Park not-so-Hoodie!
Pattern: Central Park Hoodie, by Heather Lodinsky, size 32, mostly.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed, red, 10 skeins
Needle: US 8 for body, collar, and pockets, US 6 for ribbing.
Started: November 3rd-ish
Finished: February 16th, with zippers and pockets and ribbon (oh my!)
For: me me me!
Mods: a plethora

So done! Hooray! It took me pretty much all of my free time on Saturday to finish the finishing. Um…yeah.

See? Dorky.

I do heart it.

So mods! Heavens, where to start? At the top, I guess.

Mod#1: collar instead of hood.

Gimmie all yer sock yarn!

Instead of picking up the stitches for a collar, as per pattern, I picked up the same amount of stitches and knit a 2×2 ribbing instead. On the larger needles. Then I just knitted until I had the right length for my zipper, which was 21 inches plus 5 inches of collar = 26 inches. It was supposed to be the right length for my zipper to fit in, but we all know how that turned out. Hmph. I actually think the collar’s a leetle bit long, and it doesn’t stand up so well when zipped. Oh well. I wasn’t planning on wearing it up anyway. I like it better down.

Mod #2! I did short row shaping and a three-needle bindoff at the shoulders. This was the first time I tried this technique (thanks for the idea, Weez!) and I have only one thing to say about it.

Kick. Ass.

It was really easy. Plus, no stupid seaming of stupid stepped bindoffs at the top! And very much less bulky at the joins. I highly recommend.

This is the best picture I have of the shoulders. It sucks, I know. Sorry.

Mod #3! Did the sleeves in the round instead of flat. I hate seaming sleeves. This worked much better. I also knitted the second size up on the sleeves cuz I have Amazon arms. Stupid rock climbing. One thing about the sleeve sizing, though. I have pretty skinny forearms and wrists. But the sleeves are actually pretty tight down there. Not uncomfortably so, but still. If I were any bigger, I wouldn’t like it. And all the sizes start out the same at the wrist. Seems a bit odd to me. Anyway…

Mod #4! Pockets! I love having pockets in sweaters. So I decided to put some in mine.

Here’s what I did. I thought the easiest way to do it would be to put in the pockets along the side seams. I knit the front and back pieces flat. Then I tacked it together and put it on, to see where I wanted the pockets to go, height-wise. On this sweater, I put them just above hip height, where the bottom ribbing stopped.

See? Right above the ribbing.

I then just knit two little bags, 5 by 5 inches, in the round. I grafted the tops shut, and was ready to go. I actually knit these out of some black Karabella Aurora 8 that I had lingering in my stash. It makes fabulous pockets. So squishy! Besides, I didn’t have any of the Debbie Bliss left. Not enough for pockets, anyway.

So then I tacked them into the side seams and sewed all the way around. I took a couple of pictures, but they turned out really craptastic. They’re here and here, if you’re so curious. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I had pockets! Yay! But they looked kind of crappy from the outside. Boo. So then I picked up some stitches along the outside edge and knit a teeny ribbing flap to cover up the gaping maw. Really, it was kind of indecent. But now they look better.

Kind of hard to see, even.

Then, to keep them from being all floppy, I loosely sewed down each corner to the inside. Fortunately, a rib sat right there, so I was able to do it invisibly. From the outside, I mean. I wasn’t invisible when I sewed them in, or anything. Just in case you were confused about that.

Pocketses

Last and mostest coolest mod. Mod #5! Zipper!

Sewing in the zipper wasn’t really that bad, actually. I did end up shortening it by 1.5 inches. I just cut off the top. Easy peasy. Then, taking my lead from this this and this tutorial, I put that sucker in.

First I basted the opening shut, so everything would line up all pretty.

Then I turned it inside out and basted the zipper in.

After checking that it looked okay, and zipped up and down and everything, I sewed it in. By hand. I think it took me about 30 minutes or so. Then to stabilize the zipper (and make it look pretty!) I lined the zipper back with grosgrain ribbon.

I like polka dots.

And the yarn left over? Well, when I put that little bit of ribbing on, to cover up the pockets? I had to unravel my gauge swatch. Ha! I do so love cutting it close.

And that’s all she wrote, kids.

Like it? I do. I think this is my favorite sweater yet. The yarn is just the slightest bit itchy where it hits my pulse points, but that’s bearable. And it’s warm! So, so warm. In fact, wearing this sweater, I could almost endure two more months of winter!

Um. Not.

But…almost. :)