FO: Florist Bolero

 

I joined Squid's School of Vintage Knitting on Patreon last November (I believe), and with that I got access to all the patterns she had previously released. All the patterns are vintage ones that Sydney has converted into her custom size style and extended the sizing so they are fully size inclusive - pretty cool, actually. This does mean that her fitted garment patterns take a bit more prep work than I'm used to, but as long as you know how to take your measurements you'll be fine. She gives step by step instructions on what to do with those numbers throughout the pattern and it makes the finished piece sized just for you. 

When I saw the Florist Bolero pattern, I immediately thought of it as a stash buster. Boleros are short, so they don't require as much yarn as a full sweater. When looking through my stash, I had 3 skeins of I Love This Yarn in black that I bought from Hobby Lobby when they were discontinuing it back in 2014. Crazy. This is 93% wool and 7% nylon, and honestly I wish that they still made this yarn because there is no other easily accessible wool yarn for me without ordering online. Ah, well. Anyway, the one drawback of Squid School patterns is that they don't give you an exact amount of yarn you will need for each size. She gives a few possible yardages by bust measurement, but the pattern states that you will probably not be at that yardage given the custom nature of the pattern. I had 657 yards of this yarn, so I thought I would have enough for a bolero, plus I figured that black was the most practical color to make this sweater in since I didn't have a specific outfit in mind to wear it with. So, I cast on.

The construction of this bolero is honestly a bit boring, but then I feel that way about most things that are plain stockinette. I love to wear them, but they aren't as engaging and fun to make as lace for me. Also this starts at the bottom edge, which means you have this very long strip for a while. It was very fun when people would ask what I was knitting, and I could reply, "A sweater. Can't you tell?" and then hold up my weird shaped strip of knitting. I'm easily entertained. So you knit the waist area, then divide for the armholes, then you work the back, then each side, and end up with a small vest. Then the garter stitch border is picked up along the edge (mine took 315 stitches). Then you work on the sleeves as separate pieces. This is where things got squirrely. 

I weighed my remaining skein of yarn before starting the sleeves so I could be sure to evenly divide it between the two, which is good because I ran out of yarn about 65% through. Given that this yarn is discontinued and the entire point of this project was to stash bust, I really didn't want to go through the skein hunting process online to match this. You just never know about the color matching, especially when it's a black yarn. SO I hunted through my stash and luckily had something that would do the job. I had a random skein of Naturally Caron Country yarn in black that I got at a thrift store in 2019. This yarn is only 25% wool and 75% acrylic, so it's a bit shiny in comparison to the other, but the color is very close so I just went for it. Done is better than perfect, right? Honestly I think the difference shows up better on camera than it does in real life and I doubt anyone is going to notice if I don't point it out to them. The differences are mainly the shine, but also the wool yarn is thicker despite these both being classified as Aran weight. The wool's gauge is just more dense, so you can see a bit of light behind the blended yarn. With my arm inside, I doubt even I will be able to see this difference. The area I'm pointing to is where the yarn changes.

I chose the tulip sleeve with the puffed cap for mine, so I had to do something I've only ever done once before - seam in the sleeves. It's so easy to find top down seamless construction patterns that it's just worked out that I only have ever seamed my first sweater, and it was a raglan. I've made enough toys that used mattress stitch to at least know what I was doing, and Sydney has a video about setting in puffed sleeves that was very helpful, if hard to find on Patreon (if you need it, you have to type in "setting sleeve" or else it won't come up, fyi). With the video, I was able to get it all seamed up in about an hour. Every vintage sweater pattern I've seen has been seamed, so I'm happy to get a bit more practice with the technique since I want to get into actual vintage patterns this year. 

I do love the lace edging on this, but sadly it doesn't really show up in my finished piece unless I pull it out like this. I imagine this is because I didn't block it out enough, so maybe next time I wash it I will pull that area open a bit more.

This sweater sat for a bit when it was finished mainly because I didn't love the sleeve size. It felt like the arms bands were a bit too loose for the puffed nature of the sleeve to show up. Perfect opportunity to use a technique I've heard other people use to tighten up knits! I had black elastic thread on hand from a very old project, so I added 2 rows of the thread to the inside of the ribbing. I kind of winged it, just making essentially duplicate stitch with the elastic thread and making sure it didn't show on the front side. This pulled it in just enough, but it's not too tight. 

All in all, I'm very happy with how this sweater turned out. It was a quick project that used up some very old yarn from my stash, and it helped me get acquainted with how Squid's School patterns work. Now I can feel more confident jumping into some of her other designs and at least have the general idea of what I'll be doing. Given the constant problems I had with my other recently finished sweater, this was a refreshing change :) And now I have a useful wardrobe staple ... for the winter time, lol. It's way too hot here in Florida for even short sleeves worsted weight wool.

Summary:

• Yarn: 3 skeins I Love This Yarn in Black - $11.47, 0.43 Skeins Naturally Caron Country in Black - $0.25
• Pattern: Florist Bolero from Squid's School of Vintage Knitting - $6
• Time: 2 months
• Total Cost: $17.71