Long ago, though not terribly far away, I wrote a post about a delightful cable-y pullover sweater. This sweater took ages to knit, in no small part because I was working out the logistics of the pattern as I went, and, well that whole dissertation thing. Details.
The sweater is finished! It has actually been completed for well over a year now, but I had delusions of writing up a highly detailed and precise explanation of what I did to make the sweater. I have accepted that it just isn’t going to happen. Instead, here is a picture!
This sweater is very snuggly and a bit oversized, which is just what I was aiming for. The only complaint I might have is that the shoulders and sleeves are too bulky to be very comfortable under a jacket. It works best as a solo act or as the outer layer on a cold day. This is not quite the sweater that I initially dreamed up, but I am very happy with it nonetheless.
So what went awry? As you may be able to see, the front and back neckline are identical, so the sweater has no true front or back. This was NOT the original plan. The original plan was to extend the two rows of braided cable from up the sleeve all the way across the back of the neckline, rather than ending them at the neckline as they are in the sweater. This would have given the neckline more stability and offered the weight of the sleeves some support across the back of the shoulders. Unfortunately, when I was knitting this, I was rather focused on a dissertation chapter (DETAILS) and just carried on obliviously until I finished knitting the neckline edge. I couldn’t bear the thought of ripping out all that knitting, so I improvised and left the knitting as it is.
Without the added support across the shoulders, the heavily cabled shoulders tended to drag themselves off my shoulders under their own weight. Nothing against off-the-shoulder sweaters, but that sort of thing works MUCH better when it’s deliberate and not weirdly bunching on the arms! My solution was to run a piece of sewing elastic through the pocket created by the double layer of ribbed knit at the neckline. This way the neck opening is still stretchy, but it also doesn’t let the sleeves attempt to wander off in different directions.
So will I ever catch up on the backlog of creative projects that haven’t made it to this blog? Who knows! But now I can finally wear my dissertation sweater without quietly thinking, “You know, you really should blog this!”