WIP: Miss Rachel's Yoke

When Kate Davies first published the Miss Rachel's Yoke a couple of years ago, I knew I had to make it. I quickly bought the kit, intending to cast on right away.

Of course, life intervened, as it does, and by the time I was ready to knit there were a few roadblocks in my way:

1. I wanted to knit it as a cardigan, which would require extra yarn (that I didn't have) for a button band.
2. I wanted to knit the gauntlets into the sleeves, and wasn't yet confident in my pattern-hacking skills to do so.
3. I swatched (really!) and found that the recommended gauge is quite tight, and didn't really want to subject my hands to that kind of strain. 

But mostly, I was convinced I didn't have enough yarn. (Side note - I've decided always buy/spin more yarn/fiber than I think I need from here on out. I always end up picking the projects that require tons of yardage...)

Earlier this month, we had a snowy day that had followed a very gray week. It was one of those weekends where I can't think of a reason to leave the house, and I was downright grumpy. My husband, in an attempt to cheer me up, suggested a trip to the movie theater. The only problem was, I didn't have anything to knit - at least, nothing I could knit in the dark. 

When I first learned to knit, I taught myself to knit without looking so that I could knit on the dark schoolbus, in dark cars riding home from dance lessons, and in the movie theater. Now, my "movie theater knitting" is always very basic. I can knit and purl in the same row if it's not a fancy pattern, but anything that might require a chart is out of the question. Usually I keep a sock on the needles for just such an occasion, but the socks I had going were too close to being done to entertain me for a whole two hours.

I dove into the stash to see what my options were, and the Miss Rachel kit jumped out at me. I figured that even if I didn't have enough yarn, at least I'd have something to knit in the movie theater.  And though I'd originally meant to make it a cardigan, I've realized that I wear pullovers a bit more often than I did when I first bought the kit, so a pullover it was.

One benefit of waiting so long to cast on is that plenty of other Ravelers have had the chance to knit and write about this pattern, so I could let go of some of my anxiety about how it would turn out.  Some standouts are:

Uncrossed has incorporated a great short-row detail into the yoke.

Ltnknitter, Agameda, and Lizoid have an interesting trick for hiding the jog. 

Crochet-Julie made the darker version, and managed to do her modeled shots in front of a photograph of the shawl that inspired the design.

My project page is still in progress, but you can find it here.