FO Friday – Astrid’s sweater

I have been dying to share this project with you for several months and it’s finally finished!!

I’m calling this project “Astrid’s Sweater”.  Last spring our daughter’s absolute favorite must-watch-at-least-one-time-a-day movie was How to Train Your Dragon.  I originally thought the dragons might be too scary for her, but she loved it.  She seemed especially taken by Astrid Hofferson – the tough, blond-haired heroine in the movie.

We decided then it might be cute to have Little Chick dress up as Astrid for Halloween.  We figured we could somehow create the spiky shoulder pads and skirt, but Mama would have to make her a striped sweater.  So off I went in search of the “right” yarn and pattern.  With 5 or 6 months to plan and knit, I knew I’d have plenty of time.

Meanwhile, life goes on.  Little Chick discovers “new” and exciting movies such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and falls in love with Sophia the First on Disney Jr.  Suddenly it became evident that a princess costume would be more suitable for Halloween this year.  That meant I didn’t even have the pressure of an October 31 deadline, so this was put aside for other projects.

I did finish a few weeks afterwards.  My main dilemma was realizing that I have to be careful when I’m working on such small areas like the sleeves that I can’t just lay my knitting down.  Someone occasionally likes to knit like Mama does and would most likely pull the double-point needles out (and Mama’s not that good at picking up stitches).

I do have a couple of mistakes which thankfully with the variegated yarn don’t show up unless you look really close.  Like this:

There.  Now you can’t say I don’t reveal all!

I love how this sweater turned out.  The bad part is I can’t get Little Chick to model for me!  I made it about 3-4″ longer than the pattern called for … and I apparently could have made it even a little bit longer.  It fits perfectly around and just reaches the middle of her bottom.

It’s interesting that in the pictures I took it looks as though there was some color pooling going on – especially towards the bottom of the sweater.  It’s not that evident in real life.

Pattern: Heidi
Designer: Katya Frankel
Yarn: Red Heart Soft
Colorway: Icy Pond
My Ravelry project page
Modeled by: no one.  I can’t her to stand still when she’s wearing it!