I finished my Killybegs sweater over a week ago, but I haven’t been able to get it posted until now.  The four of us have been staying with various friends and family members while on holiday.  This means crowded houses filled with people having fun, cooking and eating too much, children and pets running around, and general mayhem.   This does not lend itself to sweater blocking.

A few days ago, we arrived at our friends Mark and Teresa’s house, which is very spacious and lacking in the kids and pets department, and I had a 48 hour window before the place was filled with guests for Doug’s birthday party.  I walked in the door, and the first words out of my mouth (after the obligatory “Hi”) were “Can I block my sweater, like right this minute?”  Luckily, Teresa understands obsessions and the sweater was duly blocked, and spent 48 hours drying.

The Killybegs sweater is designed by Carol Feller and can be found in her book, Contemporary Irish Knits.  It is knit is Donegal Aran Tweed in a spectacular green with flecks in purple and orange.  I completely adore this colour.  Carol says in the book that the texture of the Donegal Tweed changes considerably upon washing and she is right.  It blooms and softens, and becomes completely cozy and warm and fabulous.  Killybegs is supposed to be finished with hook and eye closures along the front edge, but as I forgot to bring those along, I will sew them on later.  I love the way it looks open in any case, so I am not in a hurry to add them.

I made this sweater without any modifications (except for going up a size needle).  I knit it in a size 36, and blocked it to 37″, thus giving me 2″ of negative ease.  It is extremely rare that I knit a sweater exactly to pattern.  I can rarely resist the impulse to tinker, and frankly, most sweater patterns could use a bit of tweaking here and there.  This one just worked out perfect in every way.

One of the especially clever things about this sweater is the way in which Carol has incorporated decreases into the coin cable on the yoke.  The whole time that I was knitting the yoke, I was muttering “Genius!  This is sheer genius!”  It really is a remarkable feat, both intellectual and architectural, and was a pure delight to knit.

I can tell that this will be one of those sweaters that gets worn all the time.  It feels good on, it looks good on, it makes my inner knitter happy.