Maybe It Worked

I don’t want to say anything about my little sulk for spring working or not, just in case I hex it, but I can tell you this.  On Friday afternoon I made a cup of tea, gathered my yarn and needles and started a little sweater in spring colours.

I knit and knit – faking a sweater – just letting one happen.  I cast on about 86 stitches for the neck, divided them up as seemed reasonable for a little raglan (1/3 for the back, 1/3 for the front, and 1/6th for each sleeve, plus one on each end for the selvedges)   and worked back and forth, making my increases, two at each raglan point, every other row. When I got about 8cm in, I overlapped the first and last two stitches, and joined to work in the round.  When the armholes were the very scientific "Deep enough" I put the sleeve stitches on holders and kept on trucking for the body, knitting until they measured what Luis does from armhole to hip. (I actually made it a little longer. Dude is growing so fast you can practically watch it happen in front of you.)

I went down a needle size, worked a few centimetres of ribbing, and cast off loosely, then returned my attention to the sleeves.  I put all the stitches back on the needles, picked up two stitches in the armhole, and started working in the round – cruising down the sleeves, decreasing two stitches every 10 rounds three times, continuing again, until it measured what Luis does from armpit to wrist – plus a little. A few centimetres of ribbing, and cast off.

I went back to my little neck part and picked up and knit some stitches for a little placket on the bottom – just a few rows of ribbing… then picked up and knit the same number for the top overlap, and worked that for about 3cm, with two buttonholes smacked right in. 

Voila! A little sweater, made from two balls of Liberty Wool Light (colour 6606) done in less than a weekend.  I wove in all my ends* gave it a little bath, sewed on two vintage buttons from the bin, and today Joe dropped it off for little Lou on his way to work.  Easy peasy, quick and springlike – and today it’s 10 degrees out. Perfect (almost) spring weather for wearing it. So much fun, I almost made another one.

*There were a lot of ends.  A whole lot, because while the plan for the sleeves sounds simple and sensible, I’m still me – and I can’t stand it when sleeves don’t match each other, or the body.  Since this yarn is self-striping, the width of the stripes is determined by the circumference of the knitting – and that means that the stripes would be skinny on the body, and then wider on the sleeves, and the thought of that gave me a wicked case of the heebie jeebies.  Instead, I knit on one sleeve until the stripe matched the stripe on the body, then broke the yarn and did the matching thing on the other sleeve – then discarded the rest of the yarn to get to the next colour, and repeated. I think it worked pretty well, but yeah.  The sleeves had a LOT of ends to weave in. I know there’s lots of you who wouldn’t bother – and I salute you. Rock on.