Video: Every Sweater I've Made - Episode 1

 

Today's the day! I've been wanting to make a video series showing all the particulars of all the sweaters I've knit FOR AGES, and now I have finally started it. I've been knitting sweaters for 12 years and I have now finished 37 sweaters in that time. Crazy! Since it's so many, I'm breaking this up into a series and I will showcase about 5 sweaters n each episode. In each of these videos, I will talk about the yarn and pattern used, what the making process was like, any changes I had to make, and what I think of them now. It's a lot to go over, but if you want to get the real knitty gritty on lots of different sweater patterns, then this is the series for you :)

Head over to My You Tube Channel or click through the video box below to watch.

FO: Honeybee Cardigan

 

At long last I can talk about the sweater that became the saga of my first half of the year, lol. This sweater took me a year of working on and off, but I'm thrilled with the results, so let's get into all the gory details. 

This is the Honeybee Cardigan by Laura Chau, a pattern I've had in my stash for years and always wanted to make up. There are bee shapes in the lace, which is just the coolest. I paired it with another long stashed yarn - This is Art Yarns Milano in the Eucalyptus colorway, which was custom dyed for Craftsy. I grabbed it on clearance in 2017 and I just could never decide what to make with it. Then one day I pulled it out to swatch for this pattern and a project was born. The yarn is listed as sport weight on Ravelry, but this is the smallest sport weight I've ever worked with. Definitely fingering in my book, and I achieved gauge with it just fine for this pattern, so it all worked out. I started this in May of 2022 and was very excited about it. I didn't have all that much knitting time back then, but I sailed right along once I got in a groove with the pattern. Then disaster struck. In September, I was about 10 inches up the body (this is knit bottom up) and I noticed a major mistake with a dropped stitch about 6 inches down from where I was at the time. I tried to drop down and do sweater surgery to fix it, but this lace pattern builds on itself, so after trying for a while I decided it was way too complicated and just wasn't looking right no matter what I did, so I had to just frog back 6 inches of lace work. Ugh. This is why you add in life lines, friends. I will definitely be doing that on future projects.

I remade the body and started the sleeves just before Halloween, but then I started knitting Christmas gifts and didn't start the second one until January. This was then my main project until March because I was so determined to get it finished. I finished knitting the whole thing except the bands and I knew I would not have enough yarn to finish. This had me so in denial and upset that I just set it aside for about a month while I decided what to do - since this is an exclusive hand dyed yarn from so many years ago, I knew I couldn't just buy more. I went to Hobby Lobby (my only local store) and was surprised that they had an acrylic blend that looked like the darker tones of my yarn. It wasn't perfect, but it would get the job done, so I bought this whole set of 6 colors of yarn just for this one and knit the bands when I got home. I was happy with it being done and I blocked the sweater. Then I tried it on ... and the sleeves grew in blocking. I documented all the frustrations here. It was such a difference that I couldn't wear it like it was. I set it aside for another month while I puzzled out what to do.

Thankfully I found this video by Roxanne Richardson that explained how to unravel from the bottom (I had to cut my knitting!) and I was able to cut off where I wanted the ribbing to start and the just re-knit the ribbing in the opposite direction. You would never know if I didn't tell you - it looks just like before.

With back tracking, it made the yarn have a much more jarring transition in color. That's the one struggle with hand dyed tonal yarns. These are the same dye lot and everything, but the skein for the ribbing is much darker. I've embraced it and it doesn't bother me as much in person. But with shortening the sleeves, I had more yarn to knit the button bands in matching yarn. I didn't mind the darker color of the replacement yarn I bought for the bands, but I did not love that it was a different fiber content. So I bit the bullet and just unraveled the button bands and neck band and re-knit those in the original yarn as well. So much re-knitting on this project, but it was worth it for the end result.

Once I blocked the sweater a second time, it was time to back the button bands like I always do on my fitted sweaters. Amazingly, I had a perfectly matching piece of petersham ribbon in the right width and length for this sweater that I had bought from Britex probably 8 years ago. It was a miracle, seriously. I thought I was in the clear, but I used my new sewing machine to make the buttonholes and it did not go well. This is easily my messiest looking buttonhole band I've ever done. I had to unpick as many as you see sewn, which was an extremely frustrating evening. The machine does great for buttonholes on garments, but it did not like that the sensor was hanging off the fabric of the ribbon. Anyway, I was just happy to get them sewn and functional even if they didn't look amazing - it's on the inside anyway. My buttons were also from le stash and I've had them for years. They are gray with a slight iridescence and they looked nice, so I went with them.

So this saga concluded 1 year and 6 days after I started it. It was rough going several times, but I always really wanted the finished product and forced myself to keep troubleshooting. As I get older in my knitting life, I have learned that I'm not just making this for the finished product. I love wearing the things I make, don't get me wrong, but it's the act of knitting itself that I really enjoy. The finished product is just a nice perk, so it's worth it to redo things until it is how I want it to be since I enjoy knitting no matter what. Might as well ensure that I enjoy the finished item as much as I enjoyed the process of making it.

And that's my Honeybee cardigan :) I really love how this turned out and I would absolutely make this pattern again if the mood strikes. I love this color yarn, I love this pattern, I love the fit - I think the whole thing just turned out great. I particularly loved the bee lace pattern and I would totally incorporate that into a project again. I haven't worn this much yet because I finished it just as the heat of summer really ramped up, but I know this will be a staple item as things cool down here and for years to come.

Summary:

• Yarn: 5 skeins Art Yarns Milano in Eucalyptus colorway (custom dyed for Craftsy) - $26.25, 0.48 skeins Yarn bee Pigments + Fiber yarn in the green from the Fridays in Florence pack, $5.98
• Pattern: Honeybee Cardigan by Laura Chau
• Notions: Petersham Ribbon - $4.00, 14 buttons - $0.25
• Time: 1 year and 6 days
• Total Cost: $36.48

WIP Wednesday: Sweater Surgery

Well after letting this cursed sweater sit and think about what it's done for a month, and after finishing the other timed gifts I was making, I decided to finally attack this until I win. It will not defeat me!

 

I put the sweater on after finishing everything except the finishing touch of backing the button bands only to discover the rather unfortunate length the sleeves turned out.

You may ask, "How can a sleeve be both too long AND too short?" Well, my friends, this is how. It's too short to look like a long sleeve, but also too long to be 3/4 sleeve, and also it's too loose fitting at the cuff to slide them up to a length I would like. Ugh. I started unpicking the sleeve cuff a month ago only to realize that they were knit from the bottom up, creating a whole different problem than I've ever dealt with before. I was lucky enough to find this video by Roxanne Richardson that shows how to fix this in detail. After watching it a few times, I had the courage to *gulp* cut my knitting...

First you insert a lifeline just above where you want to rip back to - I used a slightly smaller circular needle and picked up the stitches along an entire row. Next, you go at least one row beneath that so you can have a tail to weave in...

And you SNIP! AAaaahhhh....

I had to unpick each stitch along that row one by one, but once I unraveled that part, the pieces were separated and I could just pull the bottom of the sleeve and wind it into a ball. I did steam the ball with my iron to get a bit of the kinking out of the yarn and now I am in the process of re-knitting the cuff. I'm going to go down a needle size this time to help tighten up the ribbing. If this works well, I will then repeat for the other sleeve.

The real irony is everything I went through with not having enough yarn to finish the button bands - which I talked about here. Depending on how much yarn I have leftover after this surgery, I may go back and redo the button bands in the original yarn. Ah well. This sweater is just determined to cause problems, but I will triumph eventually! Everyone think good thoughts for me :)