I love this sweater pattern! It checks all the boxes for me: feminine flower-like detail, color work and endlessly fun to play with color. I have knit it twice, once for Jane and now once for Emaleigh. And yes, I have had yarn in my stash set aside from a fun shopping trip at Haus of Yarn in Nashville, Tn for an adult sized Sunset Highway for YEARS now… I digress.

The first Sunset was knit for Jane, and she was very instrumental in picking her colors.  It features a handpainted skein that I dyed at a Studio Dye Day with Unplanned Peacock Studio back when I lived in Virginia. The other skeins where assorted stash skeins from Blue Moon, Malibrigo and Spun Right Round.  It is and bright and cheerful combination that was worn so long on the playground that the bright Arizona sun faded the dyes.  I have only newly finished object pictures to share, but one of these days I will dig out the sweater in its current state and share how much it has been loved! I made no modifications to the first sweater.

The second Sunset was knit for Emaleigh, and she wanted it to look just like the one in the picture on the pattern. For a kid who spends her days in creative pursuit of refashioning dolls, and making new houses for all her Maileg mice – she sure did not want to stretch for this project at all. This is my biggest struggle with knitting for my girls.  They want sweaters, and they want to shop Ravely for patterns. If the pattern is not knit exactly in the color they have there eyes on – it never sticks!!

Emaleigh did decide that short sleeves would be better, and I completely agree. I had a grand idea that we would all have Sunset Highway sweaters to wear for Easter… but Emaleigh was the only one with a new one… much less one that could be found and worn.

The short sleeve modification was very easy on this sweater.  I picked up the held stitches from the arms, and knit 5 rounds. On the first round I decreased on either side of the body stitches at the underarm to neaten up the arm hole.  I then made sure my stitch count was divisible by 4 and went on to 2×2 rib ( Knit 2, Purl 2) for 10 rounds. I bound off in pattern to keep an reasonably elastic edge for the arm and repeated for the second sleeve.

I think the results were great and with a little prompting, the sweater even gets worn!!