Tomten

Hi,

I started making Elizabeth Zimmermann's Tomten Jacket, using the homespun Dragon Fruit. I estimated yardage by measuring the length of yarn in a gauge swatch, and I don't have enough to do the whole pattern, as written. I've shortened it, and I also planned for half the fronts to be a "band" of contrasting yarn. I've ordered some black... more on that in a later post. Basically, I didn't want to go back to spinning, so it was either work with some contrast or pick a different pattern.

I looked carefully at Jared Flood's (Brooklyn Tweed) instructions for the adult version, and I do plan to incorporate some, but not all, changes. I didn't decrease for the front neck, because I'm only going to have a little over two inches of pink up the front in the first place, because of the wide band. I'm planning to do four-stitch shoulder seams, and I'll put some short rows in the sleeve cap. Based on the short rows in the back, it makes the yarn switch really obvious (I'm alternating rows, due to it being homespun, hand-painted roving), so I don't want to do more than two short-row turns per ridge in the shoulders.

I'm going to run a vertical band on each front for half the called for front width, around the bottom, and up across the neck for the collar. I'm planning mitered corners, but we'll see how that goes... The fronts are only 11 stitches wide. I'll use twelve ridges of band all the way around. With my gauge, the fronts should have been 23 stitches, so the pink up the front will be narrow. That will be accentuated, because I plan to put the contrasting (black) bands at the shoulders.

I'm really happy with the look of the homespun, knitted up. It is rather thick, but I knew I had fairly bulky yarn. I'm glad I'm alternating rows, because I can really see the different colors between ridges. That shows up the most in the top photo. Overall, it evens out an looks more variegated.

Happy Knitting!
Lisa Kay