FO Friday | Summer Navy.

One of my favorite parts about finishing a project for myself is having Katie take photos. Tuesday afternoon, she obliged me and my latest FO - Summer Navy.

I fell in love with this pattern - it's Bleached, by Amy Miller - the day it came out. Believe it or not, I've never knit a short-sleeved cardigan for myself - and having one in a fingering weight blend of wool and cotton seemed pretty perfect for summer. plus pockets!

The cardigan body is knit seamlessly (in one piece) from the bottom up and the shoulders are joined with a three-needle bind-off. Then the sleeves are worked seamlessly from the armhole down, with short rows to shape the sleeve cap (I shared a little about that in this post last week).  Which all means I didn't have to get any sewing needles out until I was ready to sew down the pockets, weave in the ends and sew on the buttons (and all that took almost as long as knitting the eight rows of 1x1 ribbing across 392 stitches last weekend!)

That sleeve technique is definitely fiddle-y, but it works! I still can't believe how beautifully this sweater fits me.

I worked the entire pattern exactly as written except that I worked the sleeve decreases earlier and faster and worked the bind-off a little tighter (to accommodate my skinny arms).

All the details are on my Ravelry project page (here). Highly recommend the pattern for everyone - it's easy, fits great and works up surprisingly quickly - even on those tiny (size 1 and size 3) needles.

Now I'm working on one more summer-y piece before heading full-speed into fall (and baby) knitting. I did a little work on my queue this week...and then the new Interweave Knits magazine dropped. I haven't been this excited about an Interweave issue in years. Seriously fun inspiration for cooler weather knitting.

And for some fun weekend reading that won't upset your queue, here's a great blog post by Katrina Kenison about her visit to E.B. White's farm (and a whole lot of other wonderful things).

Wishing y'all a whole lot of wonderful things, too, this weekend! ...and one more big smile for a Happy Friday!