Sunday 14 February 2010

The chunky sweater.

We have a very poorly little person here at the moment so finding time to do anything other than hold her is a major problem. But............she does so want to be held in the sling which means whilst she sleeps I have two hands free to knit. OK that's not really how I like to spend my crafting time but as I am virtually confined to moving only slowly and gently for fear of waking or upsetting her then knitting and such are great time occupiers especially in the dead of night.
So I have finished the jumper for Cain. It's been done for a while actually but no chance to take photos and upload them here. Cain has a real dislike of having clothing pulled over his head, as do most small children I suspect, (never understand why shop bought clothing is always so fitted and so hard to get on?) and so I finished this jumper with a couple of lines of double crochet around the neckline rather than ribbing or any form of knitted trim. The crochet is a much looser finish and therefore much easier to pull over his head without problems. He tells me it is lovely and warm and feels soft too. The hem edges are all worked in double rib for a few rows on 6.5mm needles and then switched to 7mm needles for the stocking stitch main pattern. The back is just one rectangle from hem to neck, with the stitches for each shoulder left on holders. The sleeves are slightly sloped by increased 1st at each end every 6 rows until they are the length I wanted. The front is again one straight piece until I reached the centre parting when I just decreased at the neck edge of every other row for I think 6 stitches decreased on each side. The remaining stitches were worked straight each side and then the front and back shoulders were grafted together for the slightly raised ridge effect by using a 3-needle cast off. A lot of making up as I went along but very, very easy as there was no shaping or insetting for the shoulders at all. Then I just stitched the arms in place and joined the sleeve and side seams. Of course for this jumper I had to knit a tension square, which I HATE doing, but from that I worked out all the details I needed so well worth it. It was so quick and easy that I'm thinking of making another in a stripe pattern. And possibly one for John too in the future for his biking getaways. Anyway here's a picture of the gorgeous boy in his new mama made clothing:


By the way - what do you call it? A jumper? A sweater? A pullover? Never know which is the right word!

1 comment:

River Glorious said...

Pullover or sweater over here (Puerto Rico). Very nicely made.