Ruffled Reading Jacket

There's going to be a brief hiatus in posts soon, as I will be doing some travelling.

During my travels, I will be giving the reading jacket shown below as a gift to my mother. I do hope it fits her well. She likes the 3/4 sleeves, but the cuffs might be snug for her liking. I'll find out in about a week!

This is a variation of my Simplicity Itself Reading Jacket. The main body is made the same way. The entire work, except for the ruffled edge, is worked in the back loops.

First, the yarn.



The owner of one of our local yarn shops was retiring and selling off her stock some months ago. Sad to see her go, but it did allow me to buy 10 balls of this yarn, which would ordinarily have been completely out of my budget. I had no plans for it at all; just couldn't pass up the deal! It's a hand-wash only blend of two wools. I used all 10 balls to make the jacket, using a 9.00mm hook. Cuffs were done in sc, cuff to elbow in hdc and the rest in dc.

After working up the main body of the jacket, I sewed the cuffs and sleeves to about the elbow.



This shows the seaming on the arm, were you can also see part of the turning seam as I build up the body. After the sleeves were sewn closed, I joined the yarn again near a seam and started working around the edge, making sure to start the first round from the inside, so that the peaks and valleys of working in the back loop continued uninterrupted. In the first round only, I did 2 dc together at the sleeve seams to avoid a gap.



Here's a more detailed view of the rounds at the sleeve seem, and showing the ruffle.

The rounds were done in dc except for the last round before the ruffle, which was done in hdc. The ruffle was done by doing [1 dc, 1ch, 1dc] into each hdc stitch.



Here's a front view of the jacket, as worn by my younger daughter.



Because of how it was made, there is no right side up or upside down to this jacket.




From the back, it's hard to see where the rounds done to build up the body start. If you look closely at the bottom, you can see the round where it was worked into the foundation chain.

Here's hoping it fits my mom okay! :-)