Soldotna

Cropped sweaters have become a popular new trend in knitting recently. I always sort of ignored these kinds of sweaters thinking that they wouldn't look right on me. My torso is long but thick and my waist and hips are almost the same circumference but I wanted to give it a try and see if I could make it work with my wardrobe. Soldotna by Caitlin Hunter has been on my radar for a while, I love seeing all the beautiful color combos using La Bien Aimée that my clients have used and it really inspired me to make one after Caitlin posted a series of finished Soldotna's in her stories recently.

So, I wear a lot of linen dresses. Linen for me is the perfect material to wear with knitwear. It keeps you cool in warm weather situations and when i'm cold, I just throw on a knitted sweater over my linen dresses and tunics et voila! I found an Etsy seller named Not Perfect Linen a few years ago and have never looked back. I Pretty much wear linen dresses everyday and have put away my jeans. The Soldotna crop is perfect to wear with my sleeveless dresses to give me just enough cover but not too warm. 

With the help fo my sample knitter, Gyorgyi we worked up Soldotna in La Bien Aimée Merino DK.  We did not cast on the neckline as written in the pattern and instead just did a provisional cast on and dove right into the colorwork. The reason why we did this is because I am quite particular about my necklines and I don't like to have it too closed off. I have a very short neck and I often do a provisional cast on for the neck like or the hem to be able to adjust the length to my liking. Gyorgyi ended up working some short rows to make the neckline fit me perfectly. We also knit about 5cm longer after the yoke motif before separating for the sleeves. I don't like my underarms of the sweater to be too snug and found that this made for a perfect sleeve length for my cropped Soldotna. We knit the sweater to the length specified in the pattern and left off the colorwork through out the body.  What I love about the length is that it gives the illusion that I have a waist. Also the fact that it skims very top of the skirt portion of my dress make it flattering for my hips which I am very self conscious about. 

 Check out our swatches for Soldotna. I opted for a more lighter tone sweater  inspired by my friend, Jess from Shop La Mercerie but I also swatched using my favorite color, Yellow Brick Road (Graffiti) and it looks like I will need another Soldotna for Rhinebeck this fall. The colors that I used on Merino DK are Damask (MC), Victorian Mauve, Direwolf & Winter for the CC colors. 

 Soldotna is a pattern by Caitlin Hunter. You can get the pattern on Raverly. We used La Bien Aimée Merino DK for our sample. 

Additional notes to blog:

We shifted the beginning of round to the back left shoulder to avoid the line at the BOR.