After-Action Report: Thermal
I got done with Thermal1 last night at about 10:30, and am wearing it today. It is in fact toasty warm, which is nice because the office is a little chilly.
I have precisely one issue with this pattern that's not caused by my own skill or slight lack thereof (not that there's a lot of that; the one sleeve is slightly blousy at the top, and I haven't bothered to fix it, that's all). It's all done in a 4-stitch-repeat pattern that rather gives the effect of thermal longjohns (hence the name). All the pieces are some multiple of four stitches wide. The problem is that this produces pieces that have knits next to the edge on one side and purls on the other, and when sewn up the edges with purls look noticably better. All it would have taken to fix this is to make every piece 4x+2 wide, with purls on both ends, and since it's 7-8 stitches to the inch it's not like two stitches more or less would have changed the fit appreciably. Also I should have gone with my gut and made the sleeves even shorter, but they're not enough too long that I'm willing to rip them out and reknit the entirety of the sleeve caps, so I think I'll survive.
The cleavage is slightly extreme for wearing to work without an underlayer with a higher neckline, but I can certainly wear it in public alone without looking undressed. And the pewter buttons look very nice, I think. I shall try to get a picture up, but I'm making no promises.
Now that I'm done with this, it's on to finishing the Conan sampler so I can have a picture to go with the pattern.
1: In the recommended yarn, KnitPicks Gloss, but Burgundy instead of Cedar.