The Not-So-Straightforward Basic Purple Sweater
I have a new sweater! Just in time for more snow.
This should have been the most straight forward of knits, but it wasn’t – at all.
It started as a straight forward enough knit, a top down raglan pullover with long sleeves – just keep knitting, just keep knitting.
But then I decided I didn’t like the neckline, so I cut the whole yoke off.
Which led to a whole slew of complications, out of order knitting, and ends to weave in. (More about that here.)
And on top of that, I spent the whole process wondering if I was going to run out of yarn. It was close, but between the two yarns, I had 7 grams leftover.
Materials
The yarn is two skeins of Madeline Tosh Lace held together (which they’ve discontinued! That makes me a super sad panda.) The colors are “flashdance” and “magenta,” which when held together make an amazing marled purple color that sends my camera into fits of confusion.
I used a needle size 9 (5.5mm) because I wanted thin fabric, so that the sweater could work as a layer under other pieces, or on it’s own, but I wanted to hold the yarn double to make the knitting go faster (because lace weight sweaters take forever, as confirmed by the Boring Black Sweater) so large needles were a must.
Pattern
I didn’t use a pattern, since it’s just a straight forward top down raglan (or at least that’s what it was when I started), and it’s all stockinette, with decreasing for the waist, increasing for the hips, and decreases for the sleeves. I really let the yarn do the work to make the final sweater interesting.
The body & sleeve hems are just bound off using a regular bind off and a relaxing cup of tea. At the neckline I worked an i-cord bind off, which is quickly becoming my favorite finishing for sweater necklines. It’s fast, painless, and looks good – I’m sold.
What Worked Well
Sleeves!!! My sleeves are well and truly long enough! They come down to my knuckles and I love them! Most of the other sweaters I’ve knit have had no sleeves, short sleeves, magically shrinking sleeves, or sleeves that were not quite as long as I’d like them to be but would do.
My unconventional knitting order worked out, and you can’t tell from the final garment. I guess provisional cast ons and knitting from live stitches are techniques that really are seamless.
What I’d Do Differently
The stitches along the raglan shoulder shaping got kind of wonky & wide, probably due to a combination of the loose gauge & the direction I leaned my decreases, don’t love that, but can live with it.
There’s some funky bunching at the underarm, I think caused when I was reknitting the yoke, but hadn’t reworked the math. Don’t love this either, but can live with it too.
I’m really glad to know that the knitting out of order sweaters works in real life and in my brain. However it did lead to a lot of stops and starts, while I waited for enough time/brain power to start a new sweater piece, work out some math, chop the yoke off, etc.
Next time I’d rather go with my gut from the beginning and have a smoother knitting process. Because the funny thing is, that this is the sweater I wanted from the beginning. But I second guessed myself and cast on a different neck, which I then didn’t like, which led to me cutting it off, which led to knitting the sweater in a wonky order, and you know the rest of that story.
I guess there’s something to be learned there.
Aside! How in the world do I only have 5 long sleeve sweaters?!?! No wonder I’m cold & want more. (Sweater 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 is this one.)
I said I wasn’t going to make anyone Christmas gifts this year…
“I’m not going to make any Christmas gifts this year.”
I say this every year.
And every year, one week before Christmas, I start making gifts.
Every single year.
This year was no exception.
I figured embroidery would be faster than knitting. Right?
HA!
I started these Wednesday, December 17th, finished them Wednesday, December 24th, and I’m very thankful it’s only the nuclear family for Christmas.
I wanted to experiment with something new (always a great idea on a deadline – not so much) and dove into the world of blackwork embroidery.
Very simply, blackwork embroidery is a style of embroidery that used black thread against a white or ivory background. This creates a high contrast between the fabric & the stitching. The designs are generally geometric (yes please!), and use small repetitive “fill stitches” to fill in areas and create the design. Blackwork embroidery was popular in England in the 1400s (think around the same time as King Henry the VIII of England – the one with all the wives) and is said to have been influenced by Catherine of Aragon – Henry VIII’s first wife, it was used as decoration on cuffs, ruffs & sleeves.
More information about embroidery techniques & blackwork embroidery here.
I did nothing resembling traditional blackwork embroidery – but rather took some fill stitches, and the stitching technique (blackwork embroidery uses a comparatively small number of embroidery stitches) and played around a lot.
I played with both stitches & colors, some of these are traditional fill stitches where I only worked 1/2 or 3/4 of the motif, and obviously traditional blackwork embroidery doesn’t involve multiple colors.
Materials:
-all of these were stitched on 16-count Aida, with 2 strands of embroidery floss.
Finished Size:
-the 2 pieces in frames are 4″ by 6″ (10 cm by 15.25 cm)
-the hoop is a 6″ (15.25 cm) diameter
I love dipping back into embroidery every now and then, and I definitely want to do more blackwork embroidery in the future – including delving further into the history & tradition of it – but really, it probably would have been faster to just knit everyone something.
The Deconstructed Sweater – a cozy and easy winter sweater
Giant. Cushy. Cozy. Sweater.
What’s not to love?
This is currently the only sewn sweater in my self-made wardrobe, and I really hope to change that soon. As much as I love knitting, there is something to be said for a sweater you can make in a morning.
I wanted a sweater that was cozy and easy – both while I was making it and when I wear it. So the fabric is a thick, cushy sweater knit, that I turning into a pullover with a giant cowl, and exposed seams.
The “pattern” is just 8 rectangles, strategically sewn together. 1 rectangle for the front, 1 for the back, 2 for the sleeves, and 4 rectangles for the yoke/cowl.
And the sweater turned out to be exactly what I wanted it to be.
Giant. Cushy. Cozy. Easy. The perfect winter sweater.
