Finished project - March

Hurray!! I have a finished project to share with you 😁 It's the long awaited (by me at least haha) jumper that I knit in the round from the bottom up using a pattern I converted. As I've mentioned previously, this is the first time I've knit a jumper in this way and while there have been a small handful of issues I've had to overcome, I'm so so pleased with how it's turned out. Added bonus that I even have enough yarn left over to make a matching one for my little girl (at almost 2 mummy still
has some control over what she wears and what could be cuter than matching hand knit jumpers?

So, a summary of what went well and what went not so well (i.e. what mistakes I made that I had to very swiftly learn from)...

I started off with the body of the jumper and very quickly made a common mistake : I twisted my cast on row when I joined my knitting to knit in the round. The worst thing was I didn't actually notice until I'd knit 4 or 5 rounds of knit 1 purl 1 so I was pretty cross with myself. Still, mistake corrected (nothing like starting all over again to build  on your skills) I happily completed the body section up to the part where I would add the arms. Once the ribbing is complete it's a straightforward stocking stitch which when knit in the round is just the knit stitch over and over - bonus as I'm quickest at the knit stitch! When I was almost done though, I realised that I had dropped a stitch which had undone quite a way down so out came my trusty crochet hook to fix the problem. It's frustrating when these things happen, but the fix is fairly simple once you know how.

The arms knitted up reasonably quickly and I was pleased with how they came up. The experienced eye can see where I've done the increases, but the hubby who can't knit assures me that the untrained eye can't tell and to be fair, from a distance I can't tell either so I'm happy. For my first time using double pointed needles they really did come up well. Then came the bit I was excited about and dreading in equal measure; the yoke. This is the section where you join the arms and the body 'tubes' together to make one big tube. I was surprised at how easy it came together in the end. I popped live stitches onto safety pins (these are where the body meets the arms at the underarms) and merrily knitted all the way around the 360 plus stitches in the new round.

Look closely and you can
see one of my loom bands 😂

It's all about decreasing from then on to the neckline, forming the raglan to the shoulders as you go. I used loom bands (yes! loom bands) as stitch markers as that's one thing I don't yet have in my stash
of knitting paraphernalia and I'm clearly too impatient to wait until I get chance to pick them up. It's not ideal though and I wouldn't necessarily do that again as they have a tendency to slip under the stitches and that kinda goes against the whole marking your place thing... Anyway, once or twice I realised the loom bands had shifted and had to undo some stitches to correct the raglan which was frustrating but not the end of the world. The biggest issue for me here was two of the balls of yarn I was using ended in massive knots. but I persevered and overcame (I was not going to be beaten or waste yarn!!)



Working the short rows around the neckline blagged my head a bit and I had to refer to trusty old YouTube to remind myself of the best way to do it. Once I'd got my head around it though, I was off on the final stretch before working on the collar. Knitting the rib for the collar was painful. I was so close to the end and there aren't even that many stitches in those rounds, but OMG I just could NOT get them done fast enough.  I cast off last night and quickly tried it on (still with the underarm stitches on safety pins) and it fit great.

This morning, I used the kitchener stitch to graft the live stitches together, slip stitch the collar to the inside to give a rolled collar effect and sewed in the ends and that's it. One completed jumper with absolutely, positively NO sewing up!! Normally, the completed parts of the jumper (sleeves, front and back) would sit around for weeks while I conjured up the impetus to sew them together and finish up but I have none of that this time and will happily be wearing it tomorrow. Yippee!!

Now for the fun part of typing up the pattern instructions from my roughly scrawled notes whilst wearing my new snuggly jumper. I'll certainly be giving another one a go and planning out some tweaks to add some more detail to the jumper.

Until next time,

M x