My long suffering pumpkin ale

 Ysolda first published Pumpkin Ale as part of Rhinebeck Sweater collection book. I only purchased the book for this particular design. This is how eager I was to get the pattern.  I love the original rusty orange Ysolda used but was determent to use stash yarn.
My five skeins of lioness arts  MCN dk  in(dark) hortenes were originally destined to become Joji's dragonflies jumper and then changed purpose. I'm still going to knit dragonflies as a cardi.

I knew I needed to make this shorter as I'm not tall so omitted quite a few rows from the body length. Not sure what had happened , perhaps I was too carried away with the blocking but it still rather long.

Another issue was the pockets. I still remember how excited I was to see the pocket hems in Ysolda's pumpkin ale but then a close study of the pattern revealed some sewing was necessary. I'm absolutely a complete ignorant when it comes to sewing machines. The one in my house I had over ten years ,was never been used. I'll happily waste time hand sewing than try to operate that devil's devise.

Right ,so in no time I cast on and things progressed smoothly more or less up to almost pocket holes- my skeins were disappearing in an alarming rate. The yardage for me was wrong and I needed to order another skein which I knew most likely wont be a perfect match because it was hand dyed from a different batch. I was right. It took sometime to arrive and it was somewhat lighter so I had to introduced it gently in stripes . If you look close you'll notice the pale cuffs..

Then the big hurdle was those damn pockets. I meticulously cut four equal pieces only to discover they could never serve as pockets- you need two mirror pieces to complete a pocket ,dah! Then what? zigzag stitching, bias strips? Begging begun...  Elseline  patiently prepared the pockets including stabilising interface, for me then to hand sew into the knitted holes. Thanks a million..
Once I started pinning the fabric I realised the match is poor- pocket holes were way too big for the actual fabric pockets. I ran out of fabric material so instead used mattress stitching on the sides to disguise the ugly gap.

My pumpkin ale is not perfect but is still such a lovely easy throw on with a garter shawl collar (that I would continue to widen if I had more yarn), textured back and cable running along the sleeves, drapery sides achieved by clever short rows and yes , those pockets .. :-)