cheyenne barton

blog ❆ i'm knitting my first sweater!!!

Added 2024-01-05 21:33:32 +0000 UTC

HELLOOOOO my dears~ Happy New Year!! I am in the midst of knitting my first ever sweater (for a YouTube video so the deadline "fire-under-my-ass" feeling is really moving me along lolol) and I wanted to share a lil bit of the process with you cause it's honestly been incredibly magical?? Even though I've encountered some big headaches, I'm still really enjoying myself and watching a garment literally grow from nothing out of my needles feels like actual witchcraft. OwO

DETAILS ✷

I'm following the Felix Pullover pattern from Savory Knitting (she also has a cardigan version which I'm tempted to do next), cause

it's a top-down sweater, so no seaming
it's a very standard, simple sweater with cute little eyelet details at the shoulders, so no complicated cables or anything, and I really like the boxy shape of it
it's made with worsted/aran weight yarn, so it wasn't chunky but wouldn't take me 3000 years like a sport or fingering weight sweater would do lolol

I decided on using Cascade 220 in the color Lake Chelan Heather -- I'm trying to get away from superwash wool, just cause I've heard a lot about how it can stretch a lot more than you're expecting, and tends to pill quicker?? The latter could be silly fiber rumors, but I wanted to use a 100% wool yarn for this sweater, and Cascade 220 is actually quite soft for a non-merino, non-superwash wool, and comes in SOOOO many colors. I did my gauge swatch a few weeks back in December, washed and blocked it, and my gauge was perfect so I knew this yarn was a good choice.

THE PROCESS ✷

I cast on Monday afternoon -- I think I was PMS'ing, cause I felt so light-headed and nauseous all morning, but it seemed to settle in the late afternoon so I was able to sit down and focus on something. Radhia kept me company while I did my neckline ribbing :')

And then I got started on my short rows to shape the back of the neckline!! I had never done short rows before (had to watch a couple tutorials on the "wrap and twist" or w&t method) and this is where the lil eyelet increases started. I got through the 6 short rows and noticed that my eyelets were missing on 2 of my seams, and I realized that I had been doing my yarn over wrong on my purl side ;; so I frogged back to the ribbing, and started over, and got it right on the second go around!!

Again, it feels like actual real world magic watching this sweater just grow from nothing!! Makes me feel VERY COOOOL HEHEH~~

Here you can see the eyelet increases clearly -- with this heathered green, they really look like little leaves, I think it's such a sweet detail. <333

When I finished the short rows, there were some weird gaps where it connected back to the ribbing, cause I wasn't exactly sure how to work back into one of the w&t's, but I just fudged it and threaded some yarn through the back of the stitches and it looks decent enough now lol

Once I worked through all the increases for the raglan shoulders, it was time to *shudder* split for the sleeves. This is where I abandoned my VERY first sweater back in 2021 (it was also a more complicated sweater pattern, so like...I don't blame extremely-beginner-me), and I was so nervous about it, but it wasn't a huge ordeal! Easy enough to just slide the stitches onto some waste yarn, cast on some extra stitches for the underarms, and keep knitting along~

Or so I thought.

As I was about four or five rows into the stockinette for the body, I was reading ahead to how to pick up the stitches for the sleeves, and it had me picking up 11 stitches on both arms, when I had cast on 11 extra stitches for one, but only 5 for the other. And that was when I reread the "sleeve separating" part of the pattern..

"Cast on 5 stitches, place marker for new beginning of round, cast on 6 more stitches, knit across the back..."

I had completely missed part about casting on more stitches after placing the marker!!! ToT so I had to spend almost all of Wednesday night painstakingly frogging back to the row before I separated for the sleeves. I had plans to hang out with my friend Alegra for a crafty hang that night, so I basically spent my entire time at their apartment fixing this mess lmao. I had spent a couple hours figuring out the sleeve stuff and knitting past, and then it took me roughly 2.5 hours to rip out all the stitches and get them back on my needles and place the markers back in the right places, and so I wasted probably 4 or 5 hours total on this kerfuffle but I felt VERY TRIUMPHANT at the end, so it was a valuable learning experience blah blah blah ughhhh

Anyways!!! I succesfully fixed my mistake and cast on 11 extra stitches for both underarms, and I was very proud of how tidy the extra stitches turned out, look at em!!

And now that the sleeves are separated, it's really just a matter of knitting until the body measures 9.5" from the underarms (I added half an inch cause I have a long torso), and then I'll add on the 2 inches of ribbing at the bottom!!

And THENNNN I'll be able to get started on the arms!! I'm hoping if all goes well, I'll be done with the body of the sweater by the end of today. I haven't started in on it yet today, as I've been catching up on admin work, but after spending some time knitting in bed last night, this is my progress as of this morning:

I only have 3.5 inches left to goooo! I timed myself last night while I was knitting in bed, and I realized that if I knit uninterrupted for 15-20 minutes, I can add an inch of fabric to the body. So I think with an hour and a half of FOCUS, I should be able to get 'er done >:)

IM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS DANG SWEATER it's gonna be so warm and I'm gonna wear it to death and I can't wait to wear a handknit sweater that was made by me TuT

This whole process has been documented and will be in a YouTube video going up next week, and I'm going to do my best to not make ANOTHER 45 minute vlog lolol. I'm gonna do my best to keep it around 25 minutes -- I sometimes feel like too many very long vlogs in a row puts people off ;;

Thank you for reading!!! Happy Friday!!