This is the slightly painful story of the time I tried to knit a sweater for B for Christmas in a few months, in secret… I learned my lesson, don’t try to knit well fitting garments in secret! The pattern is Goat Herder Pullover by Ann Budd. I bought the yarn and the pattern rather impulsively one Saturday in late October. I cast on a few weeks after that and soon realized I didn’t like the pattern that much! All of a sudden the beautiful chevron pattern around the chest started to look rather Charlie Brown-esque. Thankfully when I was browsing Ravelry I came across the Jasmine Scarf by Purl Soho. And that is where the idea for this pullover was born… and then things started to go south…
I originally wanted to have five of the caliper cables across the chest, forming a V on the front and back of the sweater. It soon became apparent that I wasn’t going to have enough stitches in the chest to do the fourth and fifth cables, so I had to leave them out. I think this really diminished the beauty of the design I was going for. The three cables have a narrow, lanky appearance. The full five cables would have formed a larger V shape across the chest, accenting the width of the chest. Unfortunately this wasn’t going to be my biggest issue…
Despite the many measurements I took, this sweater was a fit DISASTER:
- It was too short
- It was much too large at the bottom
- It was much too small in the chest
- It was too narrow in the shoulders
- The arm holes were too small
When I added the cables, I forgot to take into account how they would affect the resulting fabric. They caused the chest area to be much tighter than the bottom. The bottom was too large, but that was mostly my fault. I knew the sweater had no shaping, and I based my size selection off of the chest measurement I took. However B has a large taper from chest to waist (almost a 6″ difference) and this combined with the tight gauge of the sweater caused the sweater to stick out in an unsightly manner.
I decided there was no saving the sweater and that it had to go back to the drawing board. I frogged it all.
I will be attempting it again.
But this time not in secret, and not as written. I’ll have to make modifications to get that perfect fit!
Clémence 