FO: Shetland Shorty

This may be the first item I've ever knit purely for functional reasons. I have a brown mesh cropped cardigan I bought six years ago on one of my first forays into the world of work (a summer internship at the company my Dad worked for). Since the company wasn't just programmers, they had higher standards than the places I've worked at since and so I was required to wear things that weren't jeans, namely skirts.

It was the perfect summer for skirt wearing. Nice weather, little rain and no air conditioning. I bought two new skirts in serious looking colours plus a few netural looking summer tops and two mesh cropped cardigans, one brown and one rust coloured (Sadly some time later I gave away the rusty one thinking I could have no further use for two cropped mesh cardigans).

Since then I've discovered that, when we do have summer weather, that cropped brown cardigan is the perfect thing for making me feel like I'm not in a state of undress whilst still maintaining a comfortable body temperature. It's great for so many occasions. And so I set out to knit something comparable:

I think I've been pretty successful. This is Shetland Shorty, a free pattern from knitty.com. It's a clear, well-written pattern and the sizing seems pretty good to me (I knit the XS). It's biggest negative is probably the quantity of stitches that have to be picked up for the various edgings but that's simply because that technique is still pretty low down my favourites list. It's also got a very slight tendency to be more of a boob holder than a cardigan, but it's a fine line with these cropped things I think. I'll quite probably knit this again in other colours and will also look out for similar patterns (lace, cropped, tie cardigans) - any suggestions?

The yarn is from stash (extra brownie points there) and seems quite well-suited to the pattern. It's a milk/cotton blend with the emphasis on the milk. It's soft and smooth and didn't seem to split at all. The colour looks far more interesting knit up that I'd thought from the hanks.

Pattern: Shetland Shorty by Gudrun Johnston.
Yarn: Kollage Creamy in colourway 7101 - Almond. I bought this yarn from Natural Stitches at 40% off in 2009. The project took just short of two skeins so I have just over three left.
Mods: None.
Project: Online at Ravelry.