I’m surrounded by sweater knitters in my knitting group, and to be honest I’m getting a little jealous by how quickly they can ‘bang out a sweater’ to term a phrase.

There were not many sweaters to speak of last year so this year I decided to change it up, the goal is to cast-on one new sweater per month for me.

On 1 January, I cast-on for Aldous by Isabell Kraemer

And on February 9, I cast off!

I even surprised myself. Look at that smugness.

I enjoyed the construction of this sweater. The yoke is shaped by using a modified version of the contiguous set-in sleeves method developed by Susie Myers.

I opted for the split hem version, and to also wear the sweater with the stockinette as the right side.

The yarn is ‘Field of Dreams’ a collaboration by The Purl Box and Great Ocean Road Mill. It was a lovely yarn to work with. It’s going to work nicely over a pair of jeans. The blend of polwarth, linen and suri alpaca is deceptively warm. Probably perfect for the Bendigo Sheep Show which is where this yarn was purchased last year.

The only alteration I made to the pattern, was to knit a double collar. This was to correct my own mistake. I originally knit the collar with the same size needles as the body (because I’m lazy). By the time I was halfway through the yoke, I realised the collar was never going to sit right without some intervention. It was folding over to the front. So I picked up the stitches around the base of the collar on the right side using smaller needles. Once I reached the height of the original collar, I knit the cast on edge stitches together with the next row of stitches, then in the following row I cast-off once more. Phew! I’m really happy with the collar now.

I look forward to knitting another Isabell Kraemer sweater later this year (if I stay on track!)

 

 

It’s about that time of year, when I start blogging for a few months and I wonder why I ever stopped.

This is fair warning dear reader. I’m not consistent, but I have good intentions.

Like my intention to knit a pair of socks and a sweater for every month in 2020. Stop laughing. I know this is probably (most likely) not going to happen.

Let’s be honest, this is a rough goal. Like these socks before you. They were cast-on in December as my ‘Christmas cast-on’. But I’m calling them my January socks done.

The yarn is by Danni of Half-baked Hand-dyed. It’s a special Christmas colour way that she dyed for our knitting group, The Richmond Knitters. How lucky are we to have a resident hand-dyer of yarns and a lovely person/knitter/spinner all round as part of our group.

So, I know what you’re thinking, we’re already into February, where’s your January Sweater Sonia? It’s only a blog post away!

Damn it, I just went to hyperlink Danni above and saw this in her store:

You should totally go get it, so I don’t…

February socks and sweater have been cast-on. This is the only way I can fool myself I’m totally on top of my goals. More on that soon.