I make Bry a new sweater every winter. Here's the deal- he gets to choose the pattern (it's usually based on a commercially made sweater, and I either re-create the pattern or find something similar in my library) and the color. That way, he'll actually wear it. He's starting to amass quiet the wardrobe of handknits.
I whipped up this beast of a sweater in no time at all. It took me about 3 weeks of half-assed knitting to get it done. Bulky yarn and size 10 needles make for a quick knit, no matter what the size.
The yarn is Cascade Eco. It's a bulky woolen-spun 2-ply. It's not super-soft, but good for an outer layer. The yardage of each skein is huge- 478 yards- so this was a project that didn't leave the house. The wound ball of yarn took up my entire hand bag, so I stuck to my sock knitting when I left the house. It's warm, but because it's woolen-spun, it's fairly lightweight.
The color is "lichen". It's a perfect guy color.
The only modification I made was I knit the body in the round. I'm going to go back and make faux seams to give the sweater a bit more structure. That should help with the weird wavy thing it's doing at the bottom edge.
Once I seemed everything together and blocked, the sleeves grew and grew and grew. It was amazing, and my washed swatch didn't reflect that. I ripped back about 8 inches and re-ribbed the cuffs. Now they are perfect.
The pattern is from "Norah Gaughan Men" booklet. There are a few winners in that booklet.
I ended up buying way too much yarn for this sweater. I thought I would need about 1200 yards for this sweater, so I bought 3 skeins- over 1400 yards. I ended up using only 1 full skein, and about 400 yards off a second. I wasn't counting on that and I need to think of a new project idea for the remaining 600 yards.
This is part of my A-Z stashdown challenge. Slowly, my stash is getting smaller. Except for that gift certificate that my awesome coworkers got me, which made the stash much bigger. Damn them for foiling my plans.
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