Soldotna Crop

First FO of 2025!

I’ve had the Soldotna Crop in my queue for a while. Soldotna, I learned, is a city in Alaska! It took me a while to figure out what colors/yarn to use, since there are four colors total. I took a long time doing research, browsing people’s FOs on Ravelry, looking up different yarn types/colors/weights, and finally decided on four that are all from my stash – didn’t buy anything new at all. Amazing! 😂

The four from my stash: Lion Brand LB Collection Superwash Merino in Mahogany (dark brown) and Briarsmoke (mid-tone brownish-gray), South West Trading Company Optimum DK in Desert (light gray), and last but not least, Yoshi and Lucy Amelia in Gillyweed, which is a beautiful speckled indie hand-dyed yarn (pale blue). I’ve had the Amelia in my stash since summer 2019 and have been saving it for something fancy – thought the Soldotna would be a nice piece to showcase it. That decision turned out to be good and bad.

I seem to have bad luck with the neckline/opening with some patterns. With the Soldotna, I had to frog it again (just like Wool and Honey) because it was way too small. Discovered Raveler WoollyBear99‘s fantastic notes and did a bit of math and I was back on track. Phew.

I got to the sleeve-splitting part of the pattern when I realized it would be too tight. Ok, no biggie, will frog back a bit, then keep going and extend the yoke another inch or so. I don’t like too-short sleeves anyway.

However, the roadblocks continued, because I also wanted the body to be longer and ran out of Gillyweed. 😭 And of course, the colorway is no longer available. Had to go back to Ravelry to message folks who have Gillyweed in their stash and crossed my fingers. Big huge thanks to minnie052457 for being a lifesaver and sharing a few from her stash!

As expected, the new Gillyweed is quite different from my Gillyweed. It was hand-dyed and I didn’t expect a match. I really should have frogged all the way back to where the Gillyweed starts near the chest part and then alternate the skeins, but by this point I really don’t want to frog three colors back anymore…

Body finished, before going back to the sleeves. The Gillyweed shades are indeed different, but it doesn’t bother me. I think the speckles help bring them together. 😆