FO: Spanky's First Sweater

Ok, this is a moment to remember. Today was a blustery, cold day, and I made Spanky take pictures with me on the front stoop so I could do an FO post about her sweater. I'm happy to report that she was thrilled by how it fit, and is already putting in a request for another one.



Pattern: Crew-neck pull-over from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns.
Yarn: Cascade 220. I don't remember how many skeins, but I think around 7.
Needles: Size US7 for the body, and size US6 for the turned hems.
Notes: The arms ended up being just a bit too long, but she's happy the way they turned out, and doesn't mind rolling up the cuffs. I modeled the sizing on one of her sweaters that she wears a lot, and it turned out a tiny bit bigger, but that's ok, because she doesn't like her clothes to be snug at all.



The most important thing was that the shoulders hit where they're supposed to, and the neck wasn't too tight, because she does like to wear a t-shirt under her sweaters, especially the wool ones.

The color that I picked was a brown tweed, and there are flecks of yellow and lighter brown and some red as you can see, and I think the brown yarn is plied with black. I had been planning on adding some sort of intarsia picture to the bottom, but she said she just wanted a plain sweater. As a result, my interest kind of wandered, and this took a long time for me to finish. This year, when I finally decided to finish it, it didn't take but a month or so to finish the front and the arm and to put the whole thing together, but before that, last year, when I started it, it took a while to finish the back and the first sleeve. I do think I'm knitting a bit faster now, which might account for some of the discrepancy in time.

I hemmed the bottom and the sleeve cuffs, and what I did learn from constructing this, is that it is MUCH easier to just sew the seams up after you block the pieces than it is to align stitch with stitch while you're knitting the damn thing. I did the knitting-it-together route on the back and first sleeve, and the wait-til-you-block-it on the other half, and the second bit looks much better than the first. This was truly a learning piece. My seaming skills have come a long way, but the armholes and shoulder seams still aren't as smooth as i would like, and there are a couple of places where I can see gaps in the stitches.



I'll be making her another one soon enough, although I can't promise it will be another totally plain vanilla pullover, or I'll just die of boredom. Anyway, knitting to fit her is a work in progress, like our relationship. And over the years, I hope to be able to make fine adjustments to the garments the way we make adjustments to how we communicate and react to one another in order to make our fit just as perfect. I love you, honey!!!