Planning and Design
I am super in love with the Heal the Wool range from Wool And The Gang (WATG). It is definitely my favourite wool from the chunky wools I’ve tried (not that many tbh, just WATG Crazy Sexy Wool and Loopy Mango Merino No.5). I just love how soft it is and the melding of colours. Plus it’s made from recycled wool which is a bonus. But because of this, stock per colour is in limited quantities which makes me feel pressured to buy when I like a colour 😂
I had been thinking I wanted a simple knitting project (given my fails on the Sailors Dream Sweater with fit and Orange Cardigan with wool rationing). I had been wanting to make the Her Sweater since my friend bought me the Loopy Mango book. That plus the Her Cardigan which I did with the Orange Cardigan. So since there was a colour I liked and a pattern I wanted to knit, this project was born.
Materials
- Pattern
- Her Cardigan (Loopy Mango)
- Wool
- Heal the Wool – Autumn Orange (Wool And The Gang)
Sustainability Check
👍 It’s 100% wool. Recycled wool even!
Construction
Planning
Although I had the book, I knew from the Her Cardigan that the book sizing and their digital pattern sizings are different. So I bought the digital pattern during a half price sale. I do still feel a bit annoyed about it. The book is very nice (high quality) but essentially useless since the sizing is out if date. At least I think I’ve now made the ones I’m most interested in so won’t need to rebuy what I feel like I already should own anymore.
I was worried about sizing after the Sailors Dream Sweater so based my size on the length this time. In hindsight maybe that wasn’t the right approach, since length is one of the easiest parts to modify. But all part of the learning experience I guess.
Knitting
Started this on the drive to Albany to visit my parents. On the plus side seems like I can knit without getting (too) carsick. On the downside, trying to look into my bag of wool to figure out how many balls I had does make me carsick. So I guessed M/L and got it wrong. At least I only did 6 rows haha.
I did a tension swatch for once. 5.5 stitches to 8.5 rows sounds stupid to me lol. I figure it’s so the swatch will be 10cm x 10cm but instead I had to do 5 stitches by 8 rows and estimate that as long it was between 9 and 10cm that’s good enough? It seemed fine to me. I think my issue with the Fisherman’s Sweater was not having a size indication for the model photo and having the wrong impression of what the end product would look like.
After unravelling my knitting and restarting it didn’t take me that long to finish the back piece. I think it’s because I’m more comfortable with counting my stitches. I decided to felt my yarn ends together (instead of weaving them through after) and my mum commented about ‘don’t you have to unwind the yarn and re-twist it together?’. I felt like I could tell where the join was, so when I next had to join ends I did try this approach and the yarn did look noticeably thinner.
After I finished it all up and put it on to test, it seemed HUMONGOUS. To the point where I was kinda finding it hard sleeping at night, thinking I needed to unravel the entire thing and try again haha (and trying to figure out when I would have the time to do such a thing and still be able to wear it this year). I tried it again a couple of days later and it didn’t seem too bad. The length and loose fit of the body kinda reminded me of my long Uniqlo knit sweaters which is a good/ok thing. But the sleeves definitely needed to be shortened. So I marked out the length I needed to shorten it to with a Clover Wonder Pin.
Adjusting the Sleeves
I figured out I needed to remove around 10 rows. I knew I had to act on this fast or this project would end up collecting dust LOL. And tbh, it actually wasn’t that bad. I thought it would be tricky unravelling rows on the round, but maybe it’s actually more forgiving *because* is on the round? I did make sure to start the row on the underarm though.
Reflections
It’s kinda crazy how much a difference fixing the sleeve length made. Proportions are important!
I feel like this went the opposite way to the Sailors Dream Sweater, this ended up much bigger than I anticipated 😂 And I even did a tension swatch this time so I know it isn’t oversized because I knit too loose. Again, was expecting something like the model photos. I think I need to size down to get that look. I guess I’ll save that for the next Heal the Wool colour I end up buying/liking.
Two obvious flaws in this make are the first join I did and a bit of a gap at the collar join as I stupidly picked up stitches starting from the front (as well as not securely fastening the wool tail). The join flaw I actually kinda don’t mind because it helps me identify which is the back and I can’t see it when I’m wearing it haha.
Overall though happy with the result. The style and colour are something I will wear, it’s very nice and warm and I feel like I have learnt alot plus have more confidence to actually knit what I envision LOL
Things I learnt:
- An idea on how to to fit knit sweaters while constructing it:
- Do back piece, test length and width. If the width is wrong, start all over again (better to do this early than realise it later on). Add or reduce length to liking.
- Do front piece matching to adjusted back piece
- Do sleeves partway then try on for length
- Look up how to do a more stretchy cast off stitch. The neckband and sleeve cuffs do stretch enough for me to put the sweater on, but it does feel quite taut.
- Wind yarn together when felting two balls of wool together. Also try to aim to have this join end up on a stitch on the edge of the back/front piece or underside of the sleeve. I think I can figure out when to do the join if I measure how much wool is used for the last 10 stitches on a row and then apply then to when I need to join the wool.
- Don’t start picking up stitches in conspicuous places
Categories: Fibre Arts
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