I can’t believe this sweater is finally done! This one has been on my needles for a long time. The scary thing about Ravelry is that your project pages will tell you exactly how long you’ve been working on something – I cast this one on in December 2016. As so often happens when I modify a pattern, I got myself into a corner (or two) and so it was put aside. And, as often happens when I lose interest in a project, when I finally pick it up again, what’s left to be done is no big deal. This sweater sat with one sleeve for the longest time, but I finished it up last week.

The yarn is Rowan Colourspun, a discontinued yarn that I really like. (I knit the mister a vest of this – Skye – and Ice Cable Mitts in it, too. ) The colourways are Jervaulx (the red), Winterburn (the light grey) and Semer Water (the dark grey). I used Felted Tweed for the bit of blue, but really should have hunted down the Colourspun blue.

Wilhelmina is in the Nordic Tweed pattern book from Rowan. (That’s a Ravelry link.) I modified the pattern, though, because it has dropped sleeves and an angled shoulder. The original design also has no fair isle pattern on the sleeves. So, I used the stitch counts and basic shape from Bute (that’s a link to the one I knit here on the blog) with the reindeer and snowflake pattern from Wilhelmina. (That’s a Ravelry link, too.) Bute is fitted through the shoulders, a style I prefer.

This seemed like a good idea at the time, but was more complicated than I expected. The first issue is that Bute is knit with Rowan Colourspun and Rowan Felted Tweed. Since I wanted to use Colourspun, I thought it would work well. It did, but Bute is mostly Felted Tweed, which is thinner, and this sweater is almost all Colourspun – so my Reindeer sweater is bigger than my Bute, even on the same needles with the same stitch count. (And no, I didn’t swatch.) That part is okay. It’s kind of a teddy bear sweater this way.

Wilhelmina also has plain sleeves and I decided to put the snowflake pattern on them – then I decided the pattern had to match at the shoulder. More complication, more work, and really, in this yarn, the fair isle snowflakes are kind of lost. I shouldn’t have bothered – and if I hadn’t, it would have been done a lot sooner. I do like it, though, and the red is nice. It’s incredibly warm, too.

Below is the back of my Wilhelmina.

You can see that the Colourspun self-stripes a bit. I suppose I could have been strategic and started the red where it was darker and the grey where it was lighter, but since there are more red stitches than blue ones, that contrast wouldn’t have lasted anyway. I think the softness of the fair isle is inescapable – and kind of dreamy. I do like it. I made sure my reindeer started with light feet so their legs would be more visible.

And below is the finished cardigan. You can see what I mean about it being a teddy bear sweater!

The weather is dingy here, so even taking the sweater outside for a picture didn’t really show the detail well. Here’s a close up of my reindeer: