A little self-inflicted toe mishap has me currently home-bound.  I am finding myself knitting a lot during the times when I would rather be outside hiking a beloved trail.  That’s not so bad, since I managed to finish this sweater for my husband before the passing of another winter.

Three years ago, while visiting a yarn store, I found myself buying a set of yarn to make a sweater for my husband.  A daunting prospect considering all I could make at the time were simple scarves.  A year and a half later as a more confident knitter I started looking for a pattern, but I couldn’t find even one for the amount of yarn I had purchased.

Since a long time had passed in the meantime, I couldn’t just buy the extra yarn needed because of mismatched dye lots.  So I had to end up ordering another complete set of skeins with matching dye lots to make this sweater for him.  I learned a big lesson – find a pattern first, then buy the yarn.

I have already found and purchased another pattern to make a sweater for myself with the original skeins.  I don’t mind at all since I was secretly wishing to make a sweater for myself in that colourway.

I learned short row during this project.  It makes for a little higher neck line on the back of the sweater.  Short row on the round can be a bit confusing at first, but it worked out quite well in the end.  I was initially worried because it looked a bit bulging, but blocking the sweater removed the bulge completely.

Although the majority of the sweater is knitted in stockinette stitch, there are two sets of cable design on two sides of the sweater underarms.  It’s an easy cable design that I could follow without paying too much attention.

The sleeves were the hardest part.  Strictly following the pattern made for really billowing sleeves.  I had to frog the first sleeve twice before I figured out the rate of decrease to make a more shapely sleeve.  I reduced another set of stitches right before knitting the ribs to get a perfect fit around the wrists.

I used the Gamekeeper Pullover pattern that I found on Ravelry.  I had purchased DK weight yarn, while the pattern is written for worsted weight.  After quite a bit of trial and error, I figured out the right size for him that would work with DK weight yarn. The pattern was very adaptable.

The pattern itself is well written.  I like to learn as I work through projects, this sweater was perfect for that.  Other than the sleeves, I had no problem with the rest of the pattern.  I will definitely use this pattern again as a base for another sweater.

Once I finished making his, I started on a new cardigan for myself.  This is Ravi by Carol Feller.  The yolk is knitted sideways and the shape is created via short row.  I kept putting this one off because of the combination of short row and garter stitch.  Then I learned German short row.  It is so incredibly easy!  If you are interested, here is the video by Very Pink that I used to learn it.

My husband is all smiles about his new sweater.  Now that I can knit a little better, hopefully he won’t have to wait so long for me to finish the next one.

-Soma

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