Grape Tomato, Finished!

Finished Grape Tomato

Not the best picture ever taken of me (I do even worse with the auto-timer than with regular posed photos), but I'm still quite pleased with this sweater! This is a modified version of Wendy Bernard's Tomato, from No Sheep For You. I have Etcgirl to thank for calling it "Grape Tomato." For once I knit something in the yarn called for in the pattern: Blue Sky Alpacas' organic Dyed Cotton, in colour 603, "Thistle." I used my 24" Knit Picks Options 4.5 mm circular from Trillian42 for the body, and a 12" Addi Turbo for the sleeves. As those who are already familiar with the pattern will see, since I can't leave well enough alone, I made a couple of modifications. I lengthened the sleeves so I can keep wearing this through the fall (given that I had plenty of yarn... I think I still have two skeins left); and I omitted the herringbone stripes across the bust, since I didn't really want to bring yet more attention to that area, and I think it will make the sweater more versatile in terms of what colours of pants or skirts I can wear with it. I made the 2nd size (37"), as I'd read on the boards that negative ease would give me the most flattering fit, and I'm really happy I did! I think that maybe I should have made both the body and the sleeves about an inch longer or so (and I may yet try blocking it to see whether I can get a bit more length out of it), but overall I think this is the best sweater I've made since I began knitting 4 years ago. I might fix the left sleeve (I should have used the mirror decrease from the other sleeve, rather than doing both in K2tog)... we'll see. In any case, this was a delightful pattern to knit, and I do believe I'll be making a second one at some point with some lovely aqua cotton I have in my stash. Maybe I'll even do the short sleeves and the herringbone patterning next time!