naturally...

well, I got lucky! no, not that way! I found an extra half cone of the Honiburd Mini Cotton Rainbow in the natural colour, so now I have enough to make that hoodie from No 22 (see remake of a remake, Feb 26/14) in a solid colour - the natural will be great for all seasons! I’m so happy I could just knit!

What a good pattern (am I allowed to say that? oh well, I just did and I think it’s true!) – fun to knit, a few extra cool details – the outside seaming is right back in style – I was checking out some things at Anthropologie and was amazed to see all the exterior seaming.

A few extra points:
When you’re finished shortrowing the very shallow sleeve cap (a good one to start with if you’ve never done this technique before), there is an RTR which makes a nice added detail to the seam-on-machine technique of attaching the sleeve – take it off on the garter bar and set aside (so I do have an over-abundance of garter bars!) – before breaking the yarn and taking it off, pull off 4X the width of the needles and then cut – this will be enough to make the final loose row for the seam/cast-off and eliminate a couple of ends to darn in…
After all the pieces are knit – the hood last (took 3oz/80g from the second cone), put everything together, except attaching the hood to the neckline, wash it all and then work on the final zipper deal.
The zipper technique… well, it’s pretty cool – if you don’t like hand sewing and you are fairly proficient with your sewing machine, this may work for you – it looks awesome  and very professional finished – there is no outside stitching of any sort showing. Another advantage, I wanted to use a metal zipper because I think they lay better and don’t buckle out as much as a plastic or coil zipper will but they seem to be only available locally in very basic colours, so I went with the white tape/silver teeth zipper and I think it works fine with this installation because only the teeth show…
Following the instructions in the pattern, you make two opposite front bands with waste yarn separating them, block it out and then pin the zipper in place. Make sure when you’re sewing the zipper with the sewing machine, do both sides in the same direction – don’t sew up one side and down the other – this will stretch them in opposing directions – sew from bottom to top, change your zipper foot to the other side and sew the second side from bottom to top as well.
After you have the zipper sewn on the front bands, it's attached to the garment on the knitting machine - hang the right side of the garment, knit side facing you, hem will be at the right hand side. Now, hang the band with the male side of the zipper, garter row side, with bottom of zipper at bottom of garment, of course – this looks a bit weird but it’s right – make notes of where your hem band and yarn marks are so you can match up the other side.   
The other good thing about this zipper method is that if it's not going well and doesn't look good, you can abandon it at anytime and there is nothing to lose, like open stitches - just pull it off and start over or go with something else that works for you! 
I'm going to love this one, it's so cozy!