Another sweater, another journey. I bought the yarn and swatched over a year ago. Started the knitting in the dead of winter. Stopped when I realized just how much I hated the drape. Unraveled. Started again with bigger needles and a double strand of yarn. Moved on to other things. Became increasingly uninspired to knit a bulky sweater as the ice on the lake began to melt. But when the mornings began to hint of the coolness ahead, I picked up the needles again. Quickly, the sweater emerged, thanks in large part to the thick yarn and big needles.
As I knit, I thought of buttons I purchased at a local craft fair last fall from Westside Beadery. Barbara collects smooth dark gray stones from the shore of Lake Superior and somehow drills holes into them to create beads and buttons. I've been keeping the small buttons for the right project, but kept coming back to the idea of having similar, though bigger, buttons from lake tumbled stones on this sweater. Then I forgot to add the buttonholes.
I unraveled enough to add one button, realizing that one would actually be better than the prescribed three. I also decided that a big stone button shouldn't have holes. After a little emailing with Barbara to see if she had any such buttons, it was determined that with a little glue I could easily turn a stone from my collection into a button. I neglected to ask her what kind of glue to use.
Don't try to glue a metal hook to a porous rock with krazy glue or standard glue gun glue. It won't work. Hellbent on not going back to the store, I dug through the basement shelves and found some Gorilla Glue. I dabbed a bit onto both ends of a flat metal hook from my sewing basket (one that you might find on a skirt or pants), clamped it onto the stone with a clothespin and crossed my fingers. And it worked. It's a bit ugly on the back, but we'll keep that as our little secret.
I fortified the button with a smaller button attached to the underside of the knit fabric, like you see on wool coats with big buttons. And, since the sweater is double-breasted, I added a hidden snap to the side without the button so that the sides would hang relatively even. The placement of the button and snap took some adjusting to get just right (the button placement is wonky in the photo with good light, and good in the photo with wonky light).
All in all, it was a satisfying knit and I'm pleased with the results. I'm excited to have a sweater jacket for the fall and spring, and too, a thick sweater for those awful days in the middle of winter when I find myself wearing a hat in the house because I can't seem to shake the cold that settles into my bones.
Many other interpretations of the pattern can be found on Ravlery. My version goes a little like this...
pattern :: Drops Jacket with A Shape, size medium
yarn :: Cascade Ecological Wool; 3 skeins, double stranded
button :: fashioned from a rock collected somewhere along Park Point
needles :: size 13 circular
modifications :: I knit the body in the round and the sleeves straight which made for some interesting assembly. I opted for the function of long sleeves; the snow has already started to fall here, after all. I would have made the collar taller, but ran out of yarn (I guess the sleeves didn't have to be quite that long).
