Today I am reaping the rewards of a few finished knitting projects - one of the upsides of my recent illness was the extended time available for knitting and crafting - anything to avoid the horrors of UK daytime TV.

Today I thought I would share the Stopover sweater I recently completed as part of the Mason-Dixon ladies #bangoutasweater KAL. Knit in aran weight Lopi yarn but on larger than usual needles this is much touted as an amazingly quick (ie under 7 days) knit and I am happy to concur that this is indeed the case.

Like a few other knitters I had some trouble getting a gauge and fabric combination that I was happy with. Eventually I settled on 15st per 4" (the pattern calls for 13") on 6mm needles. I did a little maths and worked out that I could knit the M size and come up with something which would fit my UK Size 10 frame (34" bust).

I had never knit with Lopi yarn before and I was keen to give it a go. Choosing colours was the hard part though and I was very tempted by looking through the gallery of some beautiful finished sweaters.

The pattern is fabulously clear and it really did knit up very quickly. Looking at the finished sweaters I wasn't entirely convinced by the high neckline and I'm not a fan of things being tight around my neck. As it happens I tried it on once I got to round 12 of the colourwork yoke and decided that I liked the fit as it was, without doing the final set of decreases.

I went a little freestyle at this point - adjusting round 13 to work without additional decreases and then switching to smaller (5.5mm) needles. I added one round of plain grey and then worked in k2, p2 rib for 4 rounds.

I really liked the little pop of colour that the orange gave in the yoke pattern and so I decided to use this same contrast colour just to do the bind off with.

I am really pleased with how this turned out, and even more thrilled that I managed to bang out a sweater whilst it is still cold enough to "feel the benefit" - as my mum used to say.

You can find all the details on my ravelry page: here