Knitting Blog: A Most Successful Sweater

Knitting a sweater to completion becomes more daunting as the years go by. The reason: My standards for success keep becoming more refined. There are so very many ways to screw up a sweater, all of which may result in an unflattering, poorly fitting, or uncomfortable item of clothing on which you have spent a long time, and probably a substantial amount of money. Yarn does not come cheap. I think many knitters have thought, while wandering through racks of sweaters in a clothing store, “I could knit that for twice the price!”

I started this project with one strike against it: I could not make gauge in my trial swatches. The yarn I wanted to use was Reynolds Coco, a discontinued yarn purchased at a bargain price years ago from a yarn store that has been long closed. The yarn was just a wee bit finer than the yarn used to create the original sample for the pattern, so the fabric that felt and looked right had slightly more stitches and rows per 4 inches than the specified gauge. I did some figuring, and decided to cast on a size larger than I would have knit if the yarn could match the pattern gauge. The yarn was worth the attempt - a luscious blend of wool and rayon with lovely sheen and drape and a rich, glowing emerald color.

The pattern: “Lorelei”, designed by Tonia Barry and published by the Twist Collective. I cast on my first stitches on November 17, 2012. Emerald was Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2013, and I was excited by the idea of finishing a sweater in 2013 in that year’s color. I then proceeded to be diverted by a number of smaller , less risky projects. As 2013 drew to a close, I realized that I needed to actually spend time knitting this sweater if I ever wanted to actually wear it. I finally finished it on April 14, 2014, just as it became too warm to wear wool sweaters. Oh well, I am ready to face this coming winter in style.

This might be the nicest sweater I have ever knit for myself.

A detail of the lace pattern at the bottom of a sleeve:

I read the pattern carefully when I started the sweater, and I realized that I couldn’t knit it as-is and be completely happy with the end result. I wanted a cast-on edge that would blend into the lace texture. The pattern needed one extra stitch (a selvedge stitch) at the sides, where the sweater would be sewn together. It also needed a better buttonhole. Here are my notes on my project page on Ravelry:

• Use of a selvedge stitch is highly recommended! I don’t understand why one wasn’t designed in to make the lace match perfectly when the sweater is sewn up.


• If you use a selvedge stitch, you will need to reverse the moss rib pattern on the sleeve bottom for the rib to flow into the lace pattern.


• I used Techknitter’s Tulips buttonhole. A sweater like this deserves the best buttonhole you can give it.


• I used the Rib Cable Cast-on described at http://www.keep-on-knitting.com/rib-cable-cast-on.html. It produced a beautiful edge to the sweater that works perfectly with the moss rib specified for the first few rows.


• I’m happy with the result of my gauge substitution on my body. Warning to another knitter considering a similar gauge substitution: you may find the fit at the armscye to be too tight. This sweater fits me more like a blouse than a cardigan in the underarm.