AttenTION! My Mega Military Jacket, A Free Pattern by Cheval Blanc

I'm a major free pattern hound. I scour the internet for freebies, and even have a very special friend who would give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money (Sue, I'm looking at you! 😘). But how could I keep them to myself? They always go right onto my Facebook page!

I think the trajectory for this jacket pattern went something like this. Ravelry >> Pinterest >> Unintelligible Russian Site >> Slightly Less Unintelligible Russian Site >> French Company with Beautiful Free Patterns: Cheval Blanc.

I lived in Montréal for 10 years and thought I knew all of the French yarn companies. Anny Blatt, Phildar, Bergere de France... but Cheval Blanc? Never!

Well, look at this free pattern I found! (Never mind a ton of other ones. If you download, remember to scroll past the French for English and other languages.)

This is CB13 Veste No. 18. Alluring title, no? Well, who cares. It's just so damn cute, unique and totally exaggerated. I had to make it. And rename it: Mega Military Jacket.

There are no Cheval Blanc yarn vendors in the North America yet, so it was time to stash dive. I don't hoard a lot of bulky yarns, they're usually expensive and take a ton of space. BUT I did have something nice and loud: Noro Obi from The Cashmere Goat in Camden, Maine. It's a mix of wool/silk/mohair that, of course, self-stripes.

I have a love/hate relationship with Noro. It's not because of the random pieces of straw, the unexpected changes from Bulky to Fingering weight -- not even the random KNOTS that jump the color order! Nope. My problem is an utterly OCD imperative to match the striping on each side.

I cut and spliced until I had 1 yard of yarn left to match these suckers. It was HELL!

And I have, like, 40 mini balls of Noro from infinite splicing for this epic pullover for my husband (a free pattern, too!):

The issue with matching Noro is having enough yardage to do it. Some balls start in the wrong place, or the striping goes in the opposite direction. Sometimes those knots jump completely to a new place in the color order, so you are often working with small pieces to add to balls that don't have the color you need AT ALL.

But I only had the exact yardage I needed for a solid pullover, no extra! UH OH.

I got to thinking -- wait. I don't have to match the body of the pattern at all, because it's covered by the fronts! All that really needed to be impeccably matched were the military plackets and the sleeves.

I must say, it was rather liberating to knit that body in Noro without caring. My heart did sink though, when I ran out of colors to match at the very end of the shoulders (compare the top of both sleeves):

Can you believe that really bothered me? I'm crazy.

I do adore how this thing came out. I was even able to dive into my button stash to find a set that reminded me of shiny military patent leather shoes. Those don't actually do anything -- they're sewed down. I recommend sewing down the points, too, to prevent rolling.

My Mega (Rainbow) Military look was accomplished. All from stash!! And it really is a very quick knit.

I strongly suggest you play on the Cheval Blanc site. There are currently 506 free patterns in English, Spanish, French and German (each .pdf has every language, so KEEP SCROLLING FOR YOURS!). There are also some excellent pay patterns. Here is just the first page of recently added patterns on Ravelry:

A note to those who'd like to make a pattern from Cheval Blanc. I did find a typo in the English version of my pattern that was not in the French version. If you are confused about something, go to the French pattern first and scan through the numbers or Google Translate. It's very clear that the patterns are written first in French and then translated.

See my Mega Military on Ravelry

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