For the love of peplum

'Cove' has been knitted at super speed, not intentionally but it just happened, a lot to do with it is that it's knitted in Rowan Creative Linen, yarn which I'm slightly in love with and always seem to knit with it very quick. 'Cove’ is designed by Grace Melville and it's from Rowan magazine 55 

 Original 'Cove'

I made quite few changes to the jumper from original pattern. First being the yarn, I have used Rowan Creative Linen (which I had in my stash) instead Rowan Softknit Cotton and Summerspun, as suggested in the pattern. 

Creative linen is 50% linen and 50% cotton, it’s wonderfully raw , has a great drape but it lacks bounce, due to that I decided to make the jumper a size smaller than the size I would usually make.

The next change were the sleeves; I prefer three quarter length or cup, and the sleeves in the pattern were just a bit too in between.  I didn't make any great calculations or difficult adjustments, just cast on with 3.75mm needles number of stitches that were at the widest point of the sleeve (in my case 61). I knitted 2 x 2 rib for 13 rows using only single colour. Then I continued in sequence until sleeve measured 26 cm and finished shaping of armhole as in the pattern.

The body of the jumper (from armhole shaping to peplum) is longer as well, again no particular shaping, apart from the one stated in pattern after which I  just knitted straight until 24 cm or two repeats of stripe sequence.

 My version

 The pattern suggested knitting the peplum separately and sewing it on, I  joined back and front pieces together and picked up 182 stitches with circular needles all along the cast on row, then increased on every other stitch (273 stitches). Too be honest I should have increased on every stitch, as I would have liked for the peplum to flare out lot more, but I wouldn't have had enough yarn and as I was using yarn from stash, to buy more would have defeated the point of downsizing my mountain of yarn . The peplum is finished off using lace cast off, for a nice stretchy edge. 

I’m extremely happy with how ‘Cove’ came out, even though the colours are not really my first choice, I always go for greens, reds, pinks , but it’s nice to have  change with a bit of lilac.

Anna x