English Nantucket Jacket

Hi. It's finished buttons and all!! It's taken me 2 weeks to get to a shop to choose the buttons with help from a friend. The photo doesn't show them clearly. The have a tiny gold rim. Actually the jacket is more important than waffle about buttons, but the wrong ones can ruin our masterpieces.

Size 36"It took just over 6 skeins of Cascade 220 ,turkish plum. I have enough left to knit and felt a matching pair of ballerina slippers. I lengthened the sleeves to 17.5"and I'm really pleased with them, (I didn't adjust the armholes). The jacket body is a little baggy for my taste but will fit over all my layers in winter and keep me lovely and warm. It is very stretchy and washing will have to be careful. I really enjoyed the pattern. Enough interest to keep going yet not too hard so that you have to concentrate each and every stitch. I kept to the original crochet edge pattern(which I think looks good) but did not edge the cuffs.

FO!

That's right, I finished! I really enjoyed knitting this sweater. I was dubious about making a wool sweater with elbow-length sleeves, but after wearing it around for a bit, I've decided I like that feature. Overall, it was an enjoyable project that produced an end result I am happy with. However, I am still unsure about the yarn, Berroco Pure Merino. It's very soft, but it stretches a lot. I will have to be very careful when I wash this sweater.

Pattern: Nantucket Jacket from the Winter 2006 Interweave Knits by Nora Gaughan
Needles: US 9 Denise Interchangeables
Yarn: 13 balls of Berroco Pure Merino
Notions: 6 5/8" buttons
Size: 34" chest

Modifications to the pattern: After knitting the waist decreases as written, I knit for 2 extra inches before I did the bust increases. For the sleeves, I knit the sleeves for the next size up, to avoid them being too tight (however, I don't think this mod was necessary, since the yarn I used is so stretchy). When I crocheted the scallops on the sleeves, I did it with the RS facing and worked in rounds, instead of starting with the WS facing and turning after the first row. For the crochet on the button bands, I did the sc row in one hook size, then I went up two hook sizes for the scallop row. I also did the scallops as *sc, skip 1 st, dc/ch 1/dc/ch1/dc all in next st, skip 1 st* instead of *sc, skip 2 sts, dc/ch 1/dc/ch1/dc all in next st, skip 2 sts*. I found that this made the scallops stand out a bit better. Finally, I worked six buttonholes instead of five.