Another sweater's journey

It may take longer to get to post my fab feltable-sweater finds, but I do like being able to show off the finished objects too so - welcome to today's installment of One Sweater's Journey!

I had high hopes for this sweater - Fair Isle always gives you so much scope for picking up colour at the finish, depending on what you decide to make - but it was fluffy enough in the store that I didn't know how it would come out of the washer. Sometimes these things come out covered in whatever pills didn't get left behind on the sides of the washer and you can never quite get them flat again (I call these sweaters 'Lining' or 'Interfacing.')

Even if that did happen though, I knew it was worth spending the $3 for the hook closures:

In the end, this sweater turned out to be one of my best - thick but soft, with just enough drape to do whatever I wanted. With that lovely turned hem, what I wanted was mittens:

and of course, some glove warmers:

It cuts down on how many mittens I can produce, but I really prefer the two-piece pattern I came up with a year ago - it's so much more comfortable to wear, and soooo much easier to sew and fit! And the person who got them seemed very pleased too.

The glove warmers went into a brown paper bag with some of my grandmother's shortbread and a journal when I was invited, three days before Christmas when I had already moved on to the baking frenzy, to participate in a little exchange. Good call on my part, taking the time to make them Just In Case.

What's most amazing is that there is still a huge amount of sweater left for smaller projects - almost as though each cut makes it grow bigger, like every other sweater I use for something. Have you noticed that?

I'm finding some little uses for the scraps, of course, but that will have to wait for another day (with better photography-friendly lighting.)