Note: All the links redirect to Ravelry. You will only be able to see the link's contents if you have an account.
This is my review page for Petiteknit's Esther Jacket pattern.
Yarn and sizing:
For this jacket, I went for "Mota" by Wooldreamers (100gr - 230m) in the shade "Blanco Natural".
The pattern's recommended yarn is two strands of "Highland" by Isager (50gr - 275m) held together with one strand of "Jensen" by Isager (50gr - 125m). Without doing the math, that's roughly a DK-Worsted plus a fingering weight (two lace weights). The yarn I chose is a woolen spun DK-Worsted yarn, so even though it's thinner than the original I expected it to bloom nicely and fill in the gaps.
The gauge for the pattern is 16sts x 28 rows in "texture pattern" on 5mm needles, the texture pattern being one of the repeats. By seeing the needle size and the yarns chosen, it's a very dense gauge.
I don't live in a cold climate, so that yarn combination didn't make sense to me, and it was also very expensive even for the smallest size.
I chose to knit size XXS, and my swatch resulted in 18sts / 26 rows by 10cm instead of the listed gauge. Given that my bust measurement is 75cm, I didn't go up a pattern size nor a needle size. Going up a needle size would make the fabric too sheer for a jacket, it wolud have required a lace weight held with it. The final measurement for my size was 104cm, which was too big for my taste, so I hoped the two sts gauge difference would make it a bit smaller.
If someone is using this yarn for the project and doesn't want the gauge to affect the final measurements, I would consider knitting a size up.
My final jumper's bust measurement is 94 cm; 10cm less than listed. I am glad I didn't go bigger, since this is almost too big for my taste.
Construction:
This pattern is worked top-down in a very usual way for "european shoulder construction" (the following tekt is PetiteKnit's description):
"The Esther Jacket is worked from the top down in a textured pattern. First, the back yoke is worked back and forth and shaped with increases. Then, the shoulders are worked from stitches that are picked up and knitted along the top of the back yoke. The body is worked back and forth. The sleeves are worked in the round on a circular needle from stitches that are picked up and knitted along the armhole openings. At the end, front plackets are worked as well as a ribbed neck edge."
In my opinion, the back is the trickiest part of the pattern: the way PK writes the increases on her charts is a bit confusing - it's not always intuitive whether you need a M1p or a M1 since you work it back and forth.
The slight annoyance by the pattern on the wrong side rows would be easily solved by a steek, since it's super easy to read from the front side (that way, the sleeves were more entertaining to knit for me than the body for once)
Also, the knit and purl pattern can be confusing from the wrong side of the fabric. Even with my stitch gauge difference, I hit the intended back yoke depth on the intended row of the repeat since the row gauge was very similar.
My finished body length is the recommended length for size XXS. As usual with PK pictures, I believe the jumper worn by PetiteKnit in the promotional pictures is longer than this, so I if I had wanted the same fit as hers I would have ignored the length recommendation (in fact, you can see hers has more diamond repeats than mine).
For the ribbings I used 4mm needles, and to smooth the transition I worked the last pattern row in 4mm. I used a tubular bind off. The reason I didn't use the recommended 4.5mm needles for the ribbing is because I've had trouble with streched out ribbing before. My ribbing pulls in a little, which I prefer since it looks cleaner in my opinion.
For the sleeves, I stuggled to pick up the recommended number for size XXS. I couldn't figure out the reason for my issue, so I ended up picking up 6 sts less than indicated. That way, I had 3 sts less on either side of the BOR marker. The original design has very wide sleeves so this made them tapered, and I believe I could have added more decreases without an issue (they're still a tad bulky for what I'm used to). The decrease used in this pattern is a CDD, which could have been tricky if I hadn't done it before - it's easy to offset the decreases if you don't know they should create a straight line of stitches.
I knit the plackets exactly as described. I struggled a bit to pick up the recommended stitches, probably due to the row gauge difference created by me knitting the ribbing on smaller needles. I picked two extra stitches in the ribbing to avoid holes and decreased them in the first row. The plackets look very tidy and sturdy. The buttonhole instructions are great as well, and they allow for 2cm buttons if knit without alterations.
For the buttons, I picked some round wooden ones from a local haberdashery.
Final conclusions:
I'm very happy with this knit. The only change I would make is knit the sleeves a bit more tapered. The stitch pattern is very pretty, and a great alternative to cables for texture. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who dislikes purling because of the amount of moss stitch used, though.