Downtime Sweater

I started this sweater for Maddie last February.  It truly didn’t take me a full year to knit it, but it did take me a full year to finish it.

I put a mostly finished sweater aside over the summer, having almost all the knitting except for the sweet  turtleneck.  Then I finished the turtleneck, but never got around to binding off the neckline.  I needed to bind it off using Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off, and I didn’t know how to do it.  Most of my knitting is done in the car, or at the dance studio, or while listening to the Littles read, so I just never had a chance to pull up the instructions and get the sweater done.  It really is a nice bind off, and I used this video, and finally, in the down time (perfect name of the sweater pattern, by the way) of the days after Christmas I finished the sweater and blocked it.

Then I gave it to Maddie and never took any pictures of her wearing it. And everyone knows that no pictures of a finished sweater means it isn’t really finished, right? 😉

So here it is! Maddie’s rich green, peace fleece yarn version of the Downtime sweater.  I would definitely make this one again, but I’d pick a different yarn.  It isn’t that I don’t love peace fleece yarn, but it does feel a little “thick” for this sweater, even though the weight was correct.  And I think that might be why, even though my gauge was right, the ribbing is loose.  But Maddie loves it.  And it’s a perfect sweater winter or for cold spring days.  Or cool spring nights.  Or cool fall days.  Or cool fall nights.  Or summer nights in Maine.

Oh dear.  I think I just talked myself into making one for me.