While I wasn't an Olympic Knitter, I was knitting a lot during the Olympics. The Pearl Buck Swing Jacket project was ideal because it was mostly stockinette so I could watch and knit. Both hands and eyes were happy. Today I completed the final piece of the jacket: the back. The back and it's details are the reason to knit this project. And by details, I mean the interesting pleated panel in the center of the back of the jacket.

Here's the jacket back before the bind-off row that helps to create the pleats:

Pearl, Unpleated

Note on each side of the design you can see a vertical column of elongated knit stitches and just beyond that on each side there is a groove that also runs the length of the back panel. These are the "fold" lines for the pleats.

Here's the jacket back after the bind-off row that creates the pleats:

Pearl, Pleated

The groove folds in, the knit column folds out and the back is pleated! Pretty clever if you ask me.

And now that I've completed all the garment pieces, I can say that at least for the 36" size there are no mistakes in the pattern. However, I did find one thing that I thought I would point out as a warning. The schematic for the back piece with the pleat has the final measurements for the back as if the pleat was stretched out (as in the top photo). This isn't really a problem in and of itself, except that after you've bound off and it is time to block the garment, you don't have any expected measurements for the back with the pleat gathered in. It's not impossible to figure out, but the schematic really should have come with before and after pleating measurements so that it's possible to know what the designer was expecting after the piece was blocked.

It's also a problem if you are like me and you use the schematics, rather than the suggested sizes in the intro, to determine how big a garment really is. The top of the back is 20" without the pleat, but 15" with the pleat (that's the same as the length of the bottom of the yoke piece). That's a pretty significant difference and it has a major impact on helping to determine what size is the right size. I made the assumption before I started the pattern that those measurements with the schematic were the finished measurements, meaning that the pleat was pleated. I think (I hope) I will still be okay on sizing, I just won't have quite as much ease as I was expecting. If you're working on this pattern or want to do this pattern, use the bottom width of the yoke to determine the distance between the shoulder blades.

The back is now all pinned down to my blocking board and relaxing after getting a cold mist bath. It should be interesting to see how the garment construction goes. This is the first time I've made a sweater with any kind of yoke.