Tee Top Tuesday - An FO Post

Happy Tuesday all!  I'm here with an FO post of something you have heard me talk about for months.  My Pabaigh top is finally finished!!

[crowd goes wild]

Yes, I managed to finish it last Tuesday night, then it took me a while to weave in the ends (so many ends, due to the balls of yarn not having a lot of yardage).  I soaked it and blocked it on Friday, and it was finally dry by Sunday night.  

Here is a terrible selfie I took yesterday morning to give you an idea of how it looks.

Project:  Red and Tweedy

Pattern:  Pabaigh, by Kate Davies Designs

Yarn:  Milarrochy Tweed, in the colorway Cranachan

Needles:  US size 2 and 3

Modifications:  I made the body and the sleeves much longer than called for in the pattern (really, I did!), and made the funnel neck 3 inches shorter than called for in the pattern.

Notes:  This was not a difficult knit, but it took me longer than it should have for a couple of reasons - one, I ran out of yarn and then the extra yarn I ordered never arrived, so I ordered it again, and then of course it all arrived; two, I stopped to knit some Christmas gifts while waiting for the yarn to arrive, and wanted to finish them before going back to this project, since it was for me and had no real deadline.

The Milarrochy Tweed is a nice yarn, however, you have to be careful when you knit with it - when you say, get to the beginning of a round, and want to pull the yarn to make sure things tighten up, it can break.  That's largely because it is a thick-and-thin yarn, and a couple of times I didn't pay attention and tried to tighten things up when it was at a thin part.  Other than that, it's lovely yarn and I can tell you it makes a warm tee top - I wore this to work yesterday with a cotton turtleneck underneath and was plenty toasty!

I am not generally a fan of cropped sweaters - frankly I will be happy when the current trend for them is over.  But this hits me at my hip which is OK, so it's not as cropped as it could be; and since it's a layering piece, that also helps.  I think it will be especially nice to wear over a shirt with a pair of jeans, since it is definitely pretty casual.  I was determined to wear it yesterday to work though and it looked fine with a nicer pair of slacks.

Yesterday morning, I asked The Tim to take a photo for me for the blog and for my project page.  After a HUGE SIGH (he is SO put upon, WHY do I ask him to do things???  Please keep him in your prayers, people!), he took this one, where I look slightly crazed.  But if you know my history with The Tim and project photos, you know this was as good as it was gonna get.  His only comment (having been FORCED to do this) was, "It looks nice.  But the picture will be red against red, good choice."  Being that it is Christmastime and he is a bigger PITA in the mornings than the rest of the day, I just smiled and said, "Thanks for doing this."  (But I will admit I mentally slapped him.)

I'm glad this is finished, and I have to say it is a pretty easy pattern which would likely go quickly if you didn't have yarn issues and then get interuppted with gift knitting.

And if you knit this, PLEASE don't ask The Tim to take a photo of the finished item, he is apparently *very* busy with other things ... ;-)