Like many knitters, as soon as I feel a chill in the air and the days start to get shorter, I start to daydream of what I like to call my perfect autumn sweater. For me – that means it’s a sweater that is cozy and super soft, it’s longer in length and has a big, billowing cowl neck. If all of the stars alligned and my aesthetic requirements were met, I would also throw in another request: to be made of a light and lofty fiber that is at the same time very warm.

And after much contemplation, I finally found the sweater of my dreams: Francis Revisted by Beth Silverstein. 

Now, I have to admit – usually when I have all of the specifics imagined
and planned out, it is almost always close to impossible for that dream
to become a reality. So you can imagine how delighted I was as soon as
Reverie arrived at the Knit Picks headquarters! It definitely met my
light and lofty requirements in addition to being super soft and warm.

And funny enough, this pattern has been in my Ravelry queue for actually quite some time! And it was at that moment I knew I must have had some good crafting karma on my side. Not only did the pattern meet my design requirements (longer, cozy, cowl neck) but I knew that I could work up Reverie at a slightly looser gauge to create a fabric that light and lofty, while still being super warm. It was a match made in fiber heaven! The next step was deciding on a color, which halted my progress for a day or two. I knew I wanted this sweater to be able to go with everything while having a classic and basic feel to it. It was down to Hawk and Natural, the undyed version of Reverie. Decisions, decisions! These are the important questions that take days and days of contemplation for me to answer.

For my Francis Revisted sweater, I used Reverie with a size 10 needles and loved the light and lofty airiness of the fabric. Because Reverie has a lot of poof and fluff to it, I was easily able to work with a looser gauge on larger needles without it looking lacey. Combining the larger gauge with a pattern that is knit in the round in stockinette fabric made this such a fast and enjoyable project. It was perfect for tv and movie knitting, and the best part was seeing all of the progress that I had made each night.

I did tweak the pattern somewhat – I made it longer, so it is more of a tunic-length sweater and I also changed the sleeves. I’m always cold, so long sleeves were a must for me. Thankfully, that was an easy fix. The sleeve stitches were set aside to knit later after the body was finished. That allowed me to try it on as I worked on the sleeve, and simply decreases as needed to fit the shape of my arm. I knit stockinette stitch all the way to the end for a rolled cuff. I love the simplicity of this, as it doesn’t detract from the seed stitch border or cowl.

Now that I finally have my dream sweater for the fall, you can bet I’ll be wearing it non-stop. My favorite thing about this project is the fact that Reverie is really lightweight! It is seriously like wearing a cloud.

And as luck would have it, the day I brought in my sweater for a little show and tell, our amazing photographer Amy just so happened to be going to a shoot at one of our favorite locations in Portland – and she was kind enough to take a few pictures of my new favorite sweater to share with you all – thanks again, Amy!

And don’t forget, Francis Revisited is available as a free Ravelry download here:

Francis Revisted by Beth Silverstein

Have you worked with Reverie yet? I’d love to hear more pattern ideas!