This is definitely a record for me. I knit this sweater in less than two weeks! The pattern is the Lesley Pullover from Hannah Fettig's book, Home and Away. Hannah's design company is called Knitbot. The sweaters in this book are all pretty basic, but Hannah has a reputation for great fit and details, and sometimes, we all just need a simple sweater! The design recommends a 100% wool yarn by Quince and Co, but I wanted a cotton version for spring. I also obviously shortened the sleeves to 3/4.
The yarn is Berroco Maya in a pretty icy blue color called cielo. The yarn is 85% cotton/15% alpaca and has a chainette construction. It is lightweight but quick to knit at a worsted weight, and the alpaca content made it more pleasant to knit than some cottons.
Since my yarn is worsted-weight and knit on size 8 needles, as opposed to the pattern yarn's aran weight on size 10 needles, I did some calculating to figure my stitch counts. The fit turned out perfectly, and I can pop my sweater in the washing machine and dryer!
Yep, sometimes a basic is the way to go. My blouse is this one, and my pants are here. :-)
Very, very nice Ms. Jenny!! I'm going to have to dub you "Yarn Queen" you're so fast and good at it!! Love this look on you and you're so correct...basics are the way to go! You can never have enough of them. Great work!
ReplyDelete:-) Thanks, Myra! This was a really fast knit, for sure.
DeleteHi Jenny,
ReplyDeleteFound this blog via Ravelry as I love this sweater. I plan on buying the pattern and using the Berroco yarn however, being fairly new at knitting (I have knit a raglan sweater) I am not able to do the calculations required for this type of yarn. Can you point me in the right direction...as to how I can learn to adjust the count to use this yarn?
Joanne
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DeleteHi, Joanne! Here is my basic method: let'ss say you use the Maya yarn and have a gauge of 20 st/inch. Your stitch per inch is then 5 (20/4). Compare your stitches per inch with the recommended gauge. For the Lesley pullover, it is 3.5 (14 stitches/4 inches divided by 4). So, for every 3.5 stitches the pattern tells you to cast on, you need to cast on 5. Look at the cast on at the beginning of the pattern. Let's assume you are making the 40" bust. The pattern tells you to cast on 90, but you need to cast on 5 for every 3.5 in the pattern, so.... 90/3.5=25.7 25.7*5=128.5. Round down to 128 since you will have to divide into 4 sections for front, back and sleeves. This is the basic method. You just keep doing this calculation whenever there is a cast on or overall stitch count to check your progress, and make sure that the vertical lengths match your original size (40") in inches. I will write a more detailed blog post about this since I have been asked this before
Thank you for the reply Jenny. Much appreciated. Is the one you knit a 40 or 36? I think we're about the same size.
DeleteOops, one more question, did you knit from top down or in pieces?
ReplyDeleteI knit this top down, and I made the 36" size. :-)
DeleteHi, me again...hate to be a pest, but will it change anything in germs of the short rows, e.g. where I do the w&t?
DeleteNo problem at all. :-) If I remember correctly, I used to same formula to figure about where to do them. Just start them somewhere on the sleeves. There are only a few rows of short rows, so it won't matter that much.
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