Finished! Shopping Tunic

This was a quick diversion from the Phildar cardigan, which I've been delaying because the sleeves are so slow going...
But I guess all the yarn shops got their Soft Chunky orders because last Friday I came home to a lovely surprise of 3 skeins of French Grey. By Monday night I had my own Shopping Tunic...



I don't look quite this pregnant in real life. While the Best Friend Cardigan makes me look chunky chunky chunky, I don't feel that way about this sweater. The tunic maybe gives me only one chunky. I think it's the longer length. Actually, after making this I decided to frog the cardi and make it in a bigger size which I think may help. I love the design and the shape and would hate to see it never worn...
But, as for the tunic, I actually made this in the XS, which is crazy when looking at the measurements given for that size. (Although, I wonder if I should have gone a size up to accommodate my non-model-sized bust.) Before I put it on it looked like a long skinny little girl's dress...but damn do these things stretch! I also only used 2.5 skeins...which makes these knits so much more affordable than they initially seemed.



I loved this pattern (after I got through feeling defeated by the pockets, notes to follow). It's so simple, but the shape is so nice! The sleeves I thought were genius as is the short row shaping for the neck. And there's a ton of waist-shaping, which I think may be necessary for chunky knits like this.

So the pockets.
the m-f-ing pockets.
This was the first pattern where I felt like it was me against the pattern (only for the first 10 rows or so though). I had never made pockets before and this was a bitch.
I thought at first that the pockets would be flipped up and sewn on...but that didn't seem right after looking at others' tunics. But from the model in the book it didn't look like the pockets started at the first row--which they'd have to do unless the pockets flipped up since they are joined at row 7 and are 7 rows long. After several different join attempts I decided to add 4 rows (which I think maybe are supposed to be there in garter stitch, but are not in the pattern) and start the pockets at row 11, sew them down and leave the 7 body stitches on the holder until the end to add the ribbing to.



I think it turned out well. But damn was I pissed for a while.



One last note--one of these skeins was completely annoying with at least 4 knots that I had to join and tons of little stems and stuff...as though my virgin wool was rolling around in some hay. bad. very bad.