Last year, I knit a lot for the girls as there’s something satisfying about finishing up a project quickly. It was time for a human-sized knit! This sweater for me really took a while, as I knitted it twice. Will I ever learn to knit a gauge swatch? Probably not. I just don’t like doing it and if the price is having to knit something twice, well, I don’t mind so very much. Usually, I realize what I’ve done sooner than I did this time. Often, I find other things I want to change in the sweater, anyway. That happened this time, too.

So, let’s take a look. The pattern is Sweater No. 9 by My Favourite Things. Here’s a Ravelry link and here’s the link to the pattern on the designer’s website. It’s a top-down sweater with some ribbing detail on the raglan lines, with two suggested lengths. Here’s one of the designer’s official pix:

I used some Rowan Kidsilk Haze Trio from my stash, in Loganberry. This yarn is wonderful and squishy as well as very light. It’s discontinued now, but you could replicate it easily by knitting with three strands of KSH (or similar) held together. The colourways have three different harmonious colours each – this one has a red, a burgundy and a more orangey-red hue.

Here’s a pic of the yarn, knitted up in green and in the ball in the red, as well as my Felix cardigan knit of a KSH-ish yarn held with a fingering weight merino. That gives a similar effect to the KSH trio but is a little bit heavier:

I had bought this yarn in two colourways, as you see above, and knit a sweater of the green colourway, called Fern, a while back. I used a Rowan pattern called Paige but turned it into a cardigan. Here’s my Ravelry project page and here’s my blog post. I don’t wear that one much, because the drop shoulders and the length make it seem like a droopy blanket. It is very light and warm, though. Here’s that sweater:

And here’s the new red cardigan – with one sleeve still on the needles. The pictures are less than ideal as it’s snowing and grey today. There’s not a lot of light, even with all the lights on in the kitchen.

I’ll finish it up this week – this yarn knits up quickly! – and when there’s a sunny day, I’ll take a pic of it outside.

The benefit of knitting something twice is that I can see what things I don’t love and change them out in my version. For example, I really dislike when ribbing doesn’t line up with the pattern in the body of the sweater. If you’re knitting a K2 P1 rib for the collar, as here, and there’s a K2 in the raglan rib, they should align IMO so that the K2 in the ribbing just continues on down into the sweater. That isn’t going to work in this case, since there’s only a P1 on either side of the K2 and the raglan lines are P2 K2 P2. So I changed the counts in my collar, plotting out the placement of the raglan lines from the outset and working P2 K2 P2 in the collar to line up with that. You can see the knit ridge in this photo, that continues up the collar.

My second change was also a result of that test knit. I tried on the sweater and oooooo, that yarn was itchy itchy on my throat. I know I can’t wear KSH against my skin but I had a moment of (unmerited) optimism. So, when I ripped it back, I split the front of the sweater, turning it into a cardigan with two moss stitch bands down the front. I wasn’t sure of my ultimate row count so I winged it with the buttonholes, but it worked out fairly well.

My third change was a result of comments on Ravelry. The fronts and the backs of a sweater should not be the same and interchangeable, since the neck should be lower in the front. I added four short rows between the back raglan increases before starting those raglan increases – I could see the P2 K2 P2 place in the ribbing – to make the back a little higher at the neck. It was an easy change.

Change number four was an inadvertent one. I finished the yoke and wasn’t sure what to do with the ribbing lines from the raglan once the body was joined in the round. Just stopping them looked silly to me, so I picked up an extra stitch to have another K stitch in the middle of the 4 purls, and carried them down the virtual side seam of the sweater. To my delight, everything matched up at the hem for the K2 P1 ribbing at the waist, just as I’d set it in the collar.

There are two suggested lengths in the pattern for the sweater and mine is in between. I tried it on, because there were a couple of Ravelry comments about the hem being in an unfortunate location and I wanted to be sure. I generally don’t like cropped sweaters as they seem too short for me, and as a shorter person, I often need to shorten a “regular” length sweater so I don’t look overwhelmed. 12.5 – 13″ from underarm to hem is good for me. That’s 32 – 33cm. This one is 22 cm from underarm to the top of the ribbing and the waist ribbing is 10 cm. It’s perfect for me.

The buttons aren’t a perfect match – a bit more burgundy than russet – but I like the bit of gold in them and they came from my stash, which is even better. (That is a fuzzy pic!) The funny thing about them is that the shafts aren’t all drilled at the same angle. I’m a little OCD about things lining up and buttons being at the same angle, so I may take these off and re-sew them so that the little gold swoosh has the same orientation on all of them. Right now, all the buttons are sewn on with the hole in the shaft at the same angle.

I really like this sweater. I like it so much that I’m thinking of ripping back the Ferny Paige and knitting a green version of this sweater of that yarn instead. I also have a sweater quantity of a tweedy yarn in the same weight, so will try the pullover with that first.

It also reminds me of a mohair sweater I knit a looooooong time ago, and I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.