I am one of those people whose most recently completed sweater is almost always the favorite.  This sweater is no exception.

Pattern:  This is the o w l s sweater (scroll down) by Kate Davies.  I enjoyed knitting this pattern immensely.

I would not hesitate to recommend this pattern for anyone who is considering it.  The pattern was free when I downloaded it but now there is a nominal fee of GBP 1.50 (today that is about $2.44) with proceeds to Médecins Sans Frontières to benefit Haiti relief efforts.

Personally, I think this price is more than reasonable for this carefully thought out and clearly presented pattern.

Yarn:  I used Cascade Eco wool in a marled colorway for my sweater.  The marling effect of the yarn makes the owls on my sweater more subtle and to the casual observer they may look just like any old cabled yoke.  I like this very much because I think really obvious owls would be a little much for me.

The yarn I chose was also thinner than the yarn called for in the pattern.  To combat this I knit a larger size.  Actually I knit three different sizes, a smaller body, x-tra large sleeves and then a large size yoke.  This seemed to work out very well but it was mostly guessing on my part after the sleeves knit according to the pattern came out ridiculously small for my lumberjack biceps.

I also skipped some of the short rows.  I didn’t plan it this way I just saw the line “Here come the o w l s!” in the pattern and started right in on said owls.  Oops.

There was supposed to be a knitalong for this pattern with some gals in the Juneau Knitters group on Ravelry and my cousin Adrienne even cast on for hers in the same week but I haven’t seen any other finished sweaters yet.

My o w l s took about 1.5 months to knit and I finished it in November.

Final Notes:  I seriously love this sweater.  The fit is fantastic and for a bulky type sweater it is quite light and not too thick.

My two favorite features of this sweater are both down to the attention to shaping in the pattern.  I am quite lazy about figuring these sort of things out so I was really happy to try some new techniques and have them mathed out for me.

The first thing that I especially loved is that the shaping all takes place on the back of the sweater.  Davies (the designer) has explained on her blog that this gives a little more room for your more curvy side.  This absolutely makes sense to me and I hope to remember to employ it in future sweaters though I also like my sweaters that have 4 sets of increases.

The other thing that I especially loved in this pattern was the short rows to raise the back of the neck.  I love this so much now that I’ve tried it that I have pledged to continue the practice in all my future sweaters.

Wish me luck as I’ve always been too chicken to math out my own short rows so far!

My o w l s on Rav