The Metro Coat

I took photos of this coat after I finished it, but failed to get everything up to the blog.  So, after 1 1/2 years, here is my finished Metro Coat.  I knit sweaters using my own patterns and using bought patterns.  For this sweater, I used a pattern from a book called Swing, Swagger and Drape by Jane Slicer-Smith.

Our local yarn shop, The Needle Lady, brought in Jane Slicer-Smith, an Australian knitter,  a couple of years ago to give a series of workshops.  I attended one on fitting.  It is only the second knitting class that I have ever attended, and it was well worth it.  Jane is a master at fitting sweaters, something that has always been hit or miss with for me.  She brought a huge selection of sweaters to try to see which ones we liked and how they fit us.  It was great fun to try on all these beautiful sweaters.  I love the one on the cover of the book and will definitely knit it one of these days, but I started with the Metro Coat because I felt I needed to start using up some of my stash.  I had a lot of the light grey silk/wool yarn in my stash, so I then chose colors to go with it.

The colors I chose were a tweeded black, dark grey and camel and used green and bright blue as the accent colors.  I started the coat, but the going was very slow.  Then, I had a major back injury.  I herniated a disk in my back and was unable even to stand up for more than a week.  Even then, I could only stand up for very short periods of time without severe pain.  Once I got through the worst pain and was able to get off the very strong pain killers, I was still bed bound for 3 weeks.  So once I could sit slightly propped up, I started knitting.

This coat is not hard to knit, but does require some attention to pattern.  This is the first sweater that I have knit that has used bobbles.  My first attempts were not so successful, but I got the hang of it.  Mainly, it was a challenge managing all of the intarsia strings and untangling them periodically, but otherwise, it is a pretty straightforward project.  

Because it is such a big coat, I decided to line it to hide all the color changes and to help hold its shape.  I picked a beautiful cotton fabric for the main lining, and used a slick rayon for the sleeves to help get them on and off easily.  I covered the seam in a velvet ribbon.  

Here is a photo of the back of the sweater, and one with me wearing it.  It is quite warm and works well for 40'ish type temperatures.  I get lots of compliments on the sweater, and often have people stop me to comment on it and to ask where they can get one like it.  I love this sweater and I am tempted to do another one but shorter.  However, life is too short to knit the same thing twice, so I think I am off to do a different project now.