Of course you knew I would knit something for my mom. My mom gets a hilarious percentage of things I knit. This is due to a combination of factors including, but not limited to, she is my mom, she's not too big, her tastes are easy to predict, and she's very appreciative.
So I knew when I saw this yarn, a long, long time ago, it was going to have to be a sweater from her. Remember Fringe, the yarn shop I used to work at a long time ago? Well, they moved on and went into the yarn dying business full time (you'll know them as Dream in Color). As the store was going out of business, they had massive sales, including this at about half price. I didn't know exactly what I was making yet, but I knew it would be for my mom, and there was more than a sweater's worth.
The original plan for this year's Christmas gift was a grey silk sweater, but I never found the right sweater pattern for it, and wasn't having too much designing something I liked on my own. During the search, I came across Buckland, which looks like it was made for this yarn. That's probably because it was. It rarely happens that I use a manufacturer-recommend yarn in a manufacturer-recommended pattern, but both sort of fell into my lap, and I knew it would be perfect for her.
The picture on the cover is actually the exact same yarn I used for one Mother's Day, and I include that sweater among my unmitigated knitting successes. That sweater I knit fairly quickly, and then spent ages getting the finishing just right. Not so much with this one. This one, I was in fact sewing the final seams on Christmas Eve morning, and my family exchanges gifts on Christmas Eve. It didn't even have buttons, it wasn't blocked, so maybe it wasn't even entirely done when I gave it to her. But she knew she was getting it for Christmas, as I had fit it on her (perfectly, btw) so I couldn't just hide it, buy a picture frame, and save it for Mother's Day. It was no problem, though. We blocked at her house (I taught her how to properly block a sweater) and picked out buttons at the fabric store. Here is the final version.
In summary:
Pattern: Buckland, free from Rowan
Yarn: Rowan Cotton Jeans
Needles: US 7 and 8 (this was a size up from the pattern. Go swatching!)
Time: I started this in fall, so several months.
Cost: If you wanted to make it now, it would probably cost *. I'm going to assume I paid about half price for that.
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