Executive Level Sweater Decisions

Decision making time: as instructed in the Scoop Pullover pattern, I’ve knitted 14,5″ after dividing for the armholes, and I’m not sure whether to bind off or to continue on.

The hem sits right in the middle of my hip. Normally I like my shirts to be longer but this one looks surprisingly good as it is. The problem is that every sweater I’ve ever knitted, ever, has soon stretched out and shortened in use. I would like to one day knit even one sweater that doesn’t do that! Or rather, is so long it doesn’t matter when it inevitably does that.

The reason why I’m humming and hawing is that the yarn I’m using is incredibly heavy, and I might soon end up with a dress instead of a sweater if I do continue knitting. Well, at least stretching length-wise would be a welcome change…

Wah!

Also, I don’t know how long I want the sleeves to be. I actually don’t like the sleeve look in the original on myself, at least I don’t think I do. They’d either have to be way shorter or straight up 3/4 sleeves. I don’t know!

…It just occurred to me it might help me to find a way to take reliable pictures of myself wearing this thing. The mirror lies but pictures don’t. At least not in the same way. Yes, (something close to) the truth will be revealed tomorrow.

The Promising Pullover

Oh, what a wonderful feeling!

I’m knitting a sweater, and so far it’s gone off without a hitch. The pattern is just written in a way that is easy for me to follow, it’s the Scoop Pullover from the fall 2009 issue of Interweave Knits. I’d say that two years after I get a magazine is about the usual time frame in which I actually get ’round to knitting something out of it, hah!

This has been an incredibly quick knit, probably mainly due to the aran weight yarn and the 5,5 mm needles. I’m using Cannes from Novita, it’s a blend of bamboo, cotton and rayon. It has incredible drape, which suits the scoop neck, and it feels cool to the touch which will probably make this nice to wear in the summer.

And that’s not all! This sweater fits me, and that’s amazing! Because of the magic of top-down knitting, I’ve of course already tried it repeatedly.

This is the second top I’ve knitted top down and it’s confirmed that I enjoy that way of going about it so so much more than bottom up. Not only is it more enjoyable to start a sweater off with a bang, but I’m also more likely to end up with a sweater that is long enough. When I’m past the raglan decreases I have nothing much to wait for and can keep churning out the hem indefinitely. When I start from the bottom, I just want the boring part to be over so I can get to the exciting bit, and then I convince myself the shirt is long enough when it is no such thing.

In other news, we just had a week or two of really, really cold weather, and my Thermal sweater proved its efficacy. The cold weather also brought about the sunshine that makes life up north totally worth it. I have been enjoying such beautiful landscapes (that unfortunately are hard to capture, what with the cold and electronics not playing well together) – but also some opportunities to take pictures of my knitting. The dark days of winter are getting to be over. Just a few more months, and it’s summer again!