The Sweaters! :)

Well, The Sweater is finished. Actually, two sweaters are finished; as I was working on the body of Brendan's pullover, he asked (in his oh-so-sweet way) if I would make a matching one for his bear, Heywood. How could I say no? Hence the sepia-toned pic (hides the redeye that I couldn't get rid of!) of the two boys. :)








I knitted the larger of the two sweaters in Lion Brand Homespun, with two colours (Nouveau & Deco). I whipped it up on aluminum needles (size 10.5) in a size 6. I had approximately 1.5 oz of each colour leftover (by the time I finished Heywood's sweater as well), and started with 12 oz of Nouveau and 6 oz of Deco. The whole project took me approximately 5 days or so (stitching in the evenings for a few hours). There is a 5 row garter stitch at the bottom of the sweater and sleeves; the rest is done in stockinette.

Obviously the sweater is too big. But I didn't want to make it a size 4 (what he currently wears) and have him outgrow it by next winter. And after comparing notes with another knitter, it's possible that Lion's patterns are upsized a bit...that making a size 6 isn't a true 6. Ah well...live and learn.

The sleeves *should have* had two stripes, but the pattern never indicated to stop the stripe pattern. And so I didn't. Ah well...I'm still a bit of a novice! ;)

This was stitched together at the seams, and I found it a tad disconcerting that I had more fabric than fit together neatly. I guess I'm too used to sewing, where the patterns and stitching are more precise. But with some small tucks here and there, I got it all stitched together. :)



Heywood's sweater was a fling on my part--I simply modified the pattern down in size. While Brendan's front was 47 stitches (94 all the way around), Heywood's was 16 on the front and back (for a total of 32). I still did a garter stitch for 5 rows at the bottom, but basically did the stockinette stitch until I measured it on his body and decided where the stripes would go. The sleeves are very similar; I started Brendan's sleeves with 30-some-odd stitches, and decided that Heywood needed around 12. Of course, I didn't make that determination until after I had a few rows of 8 stitches are realized it was too small.... :::blush::: Good thing I don't mind pulling out stitches, eh? ;) Anyhow, this took me all of about 4.5 hours to do--very manageable, and both Brendan and Heywood (or so I am told) like their matching sweaters a lot. :D