My history of sweaters

This post is not meant to be a nostalgic self-absorbed ramble on my past history, it is instead meant to be of some help for beginners who are planning on knitting their first sweater.

My fist sweater

My first sweater, or, to be precise, my first attempt at knitting a sweater, was a, or, to be precise, is a, knitted-in-the-round top-down raglan-shoulders sweater with intarsia and fair-isle colour work. You can probably guess why I haven't finished it yet.

Here is the history of this project. After some research, I decided that the knitted-in-the-round top-down raglan-shoulders sweater is one of the simplest constructions for a sweater and hence a good model to start with. I've found a very good tutorial by tin can knits on their Flax pattern and the good news is that it is all free! So far so good. Then I started knitting it and... I got bored. Too many knit stitches and I started dreaming of one of those beautiful fair-isle motifs to add to my sweater and I just couldn't resist. Then I decided that I didn't like the fair-isle motifs all-over the sweater, I wanted block-coloured sleeves. Fine... except... a more experienced knitter than me would have known that this requires intarsia and... intarsia in the round can't be technically done, you have to create a new technique. Which stubborn me, I-won't-give-up, did. It involves slipping stitches and knitting in the opposite direction whenever the yarn you're using is on the other end of your piece. More precisely, it involves knitting with the main colour always in the round, while knitting flat with the contrast colour. This is done by, when necessary, slipping the stitches in the contrasting colour and then going back knitting the same row (you've read me right, the same row!) backwards (that's right) slipping the stitches in the main colour and knitting stitches in the contrasting colour. It is simpler than it sounds, it is also more cumbersome than it sounds. And it requires extreme concentration because you have to read and knit the fair-isle pattern twice and in different directions. Amazingly I succeeded doing this without a single mistake. Wow!!! Unbelievable. I still don't know how I did it. And the result? In one word: beautiful. I love this sweater.

So why haven't I finished it yet? I've got tired and bored because it took too much time to do it and I wanted to knit other stuff too. I wanted to knit socks, and... scarves, and... blankets, and... more sweaters, and... more scarves, and... cables, and... lace, and... I'm a beginner. I want to try my hand at everything. In addition, I've got the size wrong(ish).

What happened was that I was so afraid of making it too small, I ended up doing it too large. The problem with this particular construction (or recipe if you prefer) is that if you make too many increase rounds you get a very boxy sweater, which is fine by me, but also very wide sleeves, then, unless you are happy with kimono-like sleeves, you must change the decrease rounds in order to get the sleeve cuffs right, and that must be done avoiding balloon sleeves. Something else that worsened the problem with the size of the sleeves is that fair-isle has much more tension than stockinette, so to get it perfect, this sweater model actually requires knitting the sleeves with smaller needles, obviously impossible to do in the round. In other words, a sweater with fair-isle body and single-coloured sleeves should most definitely be executed flat: the back, front and sleeves knitted separately and joined in the end. This is not only avoids working in intarsia, but, in addition, it is a better idea because fair-isle requires blocking and this is easier to do in flat pieces.

I almost forgot to mention, this was not only my first sweater project, but also my first fair-isle and my first intarsia experience.

What went wrong and how to avoid it:

• The obvious: keep it simple. Avoid learning too many techniques at once. On your first sweater focus solely on learning sweater construction. We'll have plenty of opportunity to learn other techniques later. Also, consider learning them on smaller projects. Scarves are ideal to learn new techniques.
• The most common beginner mistake, when it comes to sweaters, is probably making the size too large. Remember that knitted fabric is quite stretchy, so contrary to your natural fear of knitting too small, it is actually easier to knit too large. Confront your fear and make it smaller than you think it will fit.
• Choose your technique according to the desired result. Don't attempt to bend the chosen technique to it. In other words, if you're knitting in the round don't even consider trying intarsia. If you want to do intarsia, do it flat.
• Probably the biggest source of frustration about sweaters for beginners is that these are very large projects. If you're a beginner, you'll knit slowly and the sweater will grow accordingly. One way to make this problem more manageable is to use chunky yarn.

The good news is, I still haven't given up and this post has given me the motivation to go back and knit it again. You can see from the photograph this sweater is totally worth finishing.

My second sweater

I've frogged my second attempt at knitting a sweater. There I've said it. I think I've mentioned this traumatic experience on one (or more) of my previous posts. This sweater was inspired by this beauty, the Cobblestone pullover by Jared Flood. I didn't buy the pattern, instead I decided to knit a very simple recipe (as I didn't buy the pattern I don't know exactly how Jared Flood does it, but I know it cannot be easier than what is the easiest of sweater recipes): top-down seamless circular-yoke sweater done in the round. This is a classic Elizabeth Zimmermann recipe (except she does it, bottom-up, but there are plenty of versions to be found on the net and elsewhere of this construction) and it's perfect for this sweater, because you just have to use garter stitch for the yoke and stockinette for the rest of the sweater.

I was a good girl and used all the knowledge I've gather in my previous sweater project: very simple pattern and chunky yarn. So...

What went wrong and how to avoid it:

• The yoke: I had to frog and begin from scratch a few times, because garter stitch is easy to execute but difficult to predict. By predict I'm referring to the gauge. The problem I found with this sweater is that garter stitch stretches a lot under the weight of the sweater. So my first attempts resulted in a yoke that grew as I knitted the body and added weight to it until it became way to large. I don't recommend using garter stitch and chunky yarn for sweaters for this reason, unless you're prepared to unravel your work and begin from scratch. If you do, and even if you don't...
• Do a large gauge swatch and block it well. Try to reproduce the weight the fabric will be under during blocking (by giving it a bit of extra stretch in the vertical direction). Also, don't forget to swatch in pattern, and, if you're going to knit in the round, swatch in the round. You won't regret the extra work and time "wasted" doing this.
• In the end, the above mentioned problem was not what "killed" this sweater, but a completely different one. My husband, I was knitting it for him, really didn't like the colour. That is a problem when you're knitting for someone else. If you're not planning on making a surprise, check with the recipient before beginning. Discuss shape, size, colour, decorative details like cables or lace, everything, and show him or her the swatch you've prepared. I've often changed my mind about colour or decorative details after looking at the resulting swatch. Better safe than sorry.

My third sweater

Third time's a charm. Again I used a simple recipe, even if a little more advanced than previous ones, but I was also a bit more experienced this time. This is a saddled-shouldered seamless sweater. It is knitted in the round and from the bottom-up using, again, Elizabeth Zimmermann's classic recipe.

What went right and what I've learned

• I've used chunky yarn to make the process faster. This helps staying motivated and focused. It also helps fixing any mistakes easier.
• I've used an easy, classic and well tested recipe. I don't recommend following a pattern if you're a beginner because you never know how complex it is going to be.
• Swatch: I did several using different stitches until I settled on simple stockinette because this yarn just didn't look good with anything else. This is another reason to always swatch: a stitch that looks beautiful when done with one yarn can look awful with another, a colour can look good in a small piece and too "overwhelming" in a sweater. 
• I cast-on much less stitches than I was comfortable with and persevered despite the constant anguish, as I went along, that it was too small and in the end got the size just right.
• I think that starting bottom-up is easier, against some opinions I've found on the web. Why? Because it gives one time to "know" the yarn, and check the size is right, before starting the difficult part, which is of course the yoke.
• Also, I've found that by knitting bottom-up and begin knitting a sleeve, one can use it as an extra gauge swatch. The sleeve is just small enough to be not too much trouble to unravel and restart in case you've got it wrong.

Good luck with your sweater.