one stitch forward

And one stitch back, or thereabouts, on the destashing front.

The Vital Statistics
Pattern: Icelandic Jacket by Leslie Stanfield from Adorable Crochet for Babies and Toddlers. Now all too often whenever a book proclaims itself to be 'adorable' or 'stylish' it is anything but. This is, thankfully, not one of those occasions. This pattern at least from the book is adorable.
Yarn: I chose this pattern in order to use up the Jo Sharp Soho Summer DK Cotton that I have had since the dawn of knitting time. The pattern necessitated me purchasing three additional colours, which turned out to be four more balls. While I have seen some Jo Sharp wools here in the US, I found that this particular cotton was quite hard to come by and ended up purchasing it on ebay and from others on Ravelry. Hence four more balls of the stuff because the Calico was a two-ball deal. So I used:

• 4.4 skeins in Cloudless (light blue)
• 0.6 skeins in Putty (light brown)
• 0.3 skeins in Calico (white)
• 0.3 skeins in Freesia (yellow/green)
  

From the five balls that I started with, I am left with not quite four balls remaining (and an adorable jacket).
Size: The pattern is written for only one size (6 months) but with a bit of crochet know-how I think that it could quite easily be re-sized. I see on Ravelry that someone has made an adult version.
Hook: 3.0 mm for edging, 3.5 mm (E) for body, 4.0 mm (G) for foundation chain.
Start to finish: 16 February to 1 March 2010 - crochet is fast.
Recycle/stash content: Well, I really did try but as far as making a dent in the stash, I only reduced it by one ball.

Comments: This is a great pattern, I just love it. I made it from cotton instead of wool so that will have changed how structured it is. I can't wait to make another one from wool to see the difference. I also crocheted the lower fronts and back all in one piece (the pattern calls to divide below the yoke and have side seams but I didn't think this necessary). I also think that all but one of the underarm gusset increase rows (being the one with four increases at the edges) could be worked in a single row.

The sleeves could also be crocheted in the round but I didn't do this as it would have made the fabric of the sleeves slightly different from that of the rest of the garment (when you work crochet back and forth you see back and front of the stitch on alternating rows; when you work in the round you see only the front of the stitch every row).

Only one other hint - when placing the top-most button hole, place it just below the neckline because you then crochet three more rows. If you place it any lower, it will be too low once those rows are done. I bought my metal buttons from The Weaving Works; next time I might try wooden as the book suggests. Oh and one more, I always like to use a slightly larger hook to make my foundation chain to ensure that it is loose enough.

Verdict: If I were to make as many of these as I would like to, we may just have to move to Iceland. I'm extremely happy with the result and it really is adorable.