I LOVE Salina! This is easily my favourite garment to date, and not only was it relatively simple to knit (and satisfying to do a knitted-on collar) but it fits like a dream and is lightweight, warm and comfortable. It wins at everything.
Apart from, the fact that the back and the sleeves and most of the front are an interminable purgatory of stocking stitch. I had a gap of two or three weeks in the middle of this where I did nothing, because I couldn't face picking up my half-finished back-of-Salina and thinking about all that was still to come. But when the back was finished, everything speeded up, and a week's holiday spent at my parents' gave me the time and incentive to finish the whole thing. I guessed most of the techniques for sewing it together once all the pieces were completed (the pattern doesn't give you much useful information about how best to make it up), but everything seems to have worked and I really do love it now. Knitting something with button holes, and being able to spend a happy hour choosing exactly the right buttons (which are reddy-pink and twinkly-shiny, look!) was all part of the satisfaction. Having a knitted-on collar is fantastic, and I really like the moss stitch edging (that, in fact, was what drew me to the pattern in the first place).
Details: Salina from Vintage Style, knitted in Rowan Felted Tweed on 3.25 and 3.75 circular needles, size Small.
I panicked slightly (as I always do) that the Felted Tweed wouldn't last out long enough to finish the piece, but it proved me wrong and the six skeins the pattern tells you for that size is more than enough. Nothing bad to say about my experience with this, honestly, except that the pattern is quite unhelpful about methods for making up (especially sewing on the cuffs, I completely made up how to do that).Labels: FO, FO 2005, rowan felted tweed, salina, yarn
