Oriel Lace Blouse
This sweater is based off of the Oriel Lace Blouse knitting pattern by Shirley Paden. The lace repeat is pretty simple with stitch markers, the Sugar Rush yarn was soft & silky smooth, & the whole thing was gorgeous to look at during every step of the way. As expected the sugar cane yarn behaved in a similar way to bamboo or any other plant-based fiber, and did not have any bounce to it, but did have a lot of sheen.
I followed the directions for the sleeves & upper bodice as written, but modified the lower bodice to be a bit wider. For the neckband I held a strand of elastic with my yarn to keep the neckband from sagging, and knit it on US size 1 needles (instead of size 2) to make a narrower circumference. My neckband turned out 15” wide instead of 16 1/4” wide, which was just perfect for me. I only knit one repeat for the neckband, making it about 1 1/2” tall. Adding the proper crochet edging for the buttons firmed up the neck edge so that it shows the stitching off perfectly.
I altered the measurements so that the whole sweater body would have about .5” of positive ease, and it looks great! I can wear it with tank tops or long sleeves underneath. I knit the body and sleeves in the round, and used a simple backstitch (sewn by hand with 1/2 thickness strand of yarn, right sides of the fabric held together/wrong sides showing) to sew in the lace sleeves.