I finally finished this jumper almost a year ago, but I’ve only just got round to blogging about it, rubbish!
This jumper took me a LONG time to finish. From pictures I can see that I started it in January and I finally got round to blocking the jumper on 12th September, phew! As the yarn is 4ply I always knew it would take me a while to finish it, but I completely underestimated just how long.
I’m so pleased with the finished results though so it was definitely worth the effort. I really love the yarn, Brooklyn Tweed Loft, although, as explained in the pattern it does break easily.
I think the knitting of the jumper was fairly straightforward. The design is very clever; instead of knitting from top to bottom, you knit horizontally, incorporating the neck and arm holes as you go. Knitting the jumper in this way only leaves one seam to graft which is a joy at the end of a long project.
For me, grafting the seam was the most difficult part of the pattern, and you can see where I got the tension wrong at the beginning. I think this was my fifth or sixth attempt at the grafting (before I couldn’t get it right at all!) so on this attempt when I saw that I’d finally grasped it and it was only the tension that was wrong I just made the tension looser and carried on. After this point though, I think the grafting looks fairly good, so I’m pleased with that.
The finished garment is lovely, so light and easy to wear, compared to bulkier aran weight items I have knitted in the past. I would definitely consider knitting something in 4ply again, even though it did seem like the ‘never ending knit’ at the time!
The one thing (again!) that I don’t seem to have gotten quite right is the fit. There is apparently meant to be 8cm of ease, and after measuring myself, I thought I had chosen the right size to allow this. After knitting though, it is MUCH snugger than I would normally go for. It definitely isn’t tight, but there also isn’t 8cm ease! I think I must have a problem where I don’t understand my own body shape, and therefore don’t go for the right pattern size, or knit things to the right dimensions etc.
Something I did get right this time though was the sleeve length, which I made shorter than the pattern, plus I added ribbing to the cuffs, and after reading the Ravelry comments, I made the jumper longer, which I’m really glad I did.
The only other issues I encountered, was that I broke TWO needles, yes TWO! One I sat on, and one I kneeled on. VERY annoying, and a habit which could get expensive! And I also over blocked it, possibly because I was trying to eek it out to bigger size!
Over all though I love it, and I get so many compliments every time I wear it!
