Timetable pullover

 
 


I actually finished a garment some months ago.  Blankets are easy, but sweaters have to fit, and that is difficult.  It was the pattern that caught my interest, Timetable pullover by Andrea Sanchez in Interweave Knits Spring 2015 issue.  It was brown, it was a close fitting sweater in a thin yarn, a top down pattern with interesting pattern detail.














I decided to use Noro yarn, in order to reduce the Noro yarns in the yarn store.  I bought the Taiyo 4 ply sock yarn two years earlier in order to crochet a cardigan.  I started and did quite well, getting the required tension.  I didn't like it because I thought that the fabric was too stiff, and I had been looking for an opportunity to unravel it.  I washed the yarn, but you can see that the knitted sweater is uneven because the kinks did not disappear fully.

I can't remember much about the knitting now, except that it took a long time.  I enjoyed it but I had to follow the pattern row by row because of changes in the cable pattern.  It wasn't difficult, and I enjoyed the knitting.  The standard blankets are much more fun though.  I tried it on several times to check the fit.








In the pattern the cable continues around the corner along the bottom hem at the back, and this appealed to me.  I hadn't appreciated that the angle was very sharp, and that I didn't like.  I tried it, and undid it, and just did several rows garter stitch in the end.

The sweater fits nicely, and that is the main thing.  I wear it now that the weather is more appropriate.  The Noro yarn does of course obscure the cable pattern, and it is really superfluous, but I liked doing it.  It would be a much nicer sweater in a plain yarn.  The Noro yarn produced a wider tension than the pattern, so I knitted a size smaller.












It took me nearly eight months to complete one sweater.  (I haven't worked out how many blankets I knitted meanwhile.)  So I thought I should give myself deadlines, three months for one sweater.  Because I see so many patterns I would like to try, and there is so much yarn reserved for sweaters.  I did complete the next one within the deadline, but not the third or the fourth.  My deadline doesn't allow for deciding it is no good and starting again from scratch.  And it is stressful.  So I will have to be content with sweaters taking a long time, if I want to enjoy knitting them.


Timetable pullover by Andrea Sanchez, Interweave Knits Spring 2015

Yarn:  Noro 4 ply sock yarn cotton 50%, wool 17%, nylon 17%, silk 16%,  260 gr
Needles: 3 mm
Tension: 24 st
Size: Small
Knitted:   15 May to 30 December 2015

I'm knitting Noro

I bought this Noro yarn, Noro Transitions, half price in the July sales four and a half years ago.  It was an impulse buy because I liked the yarn so much.  Since then I have been looking for a pattern to knit with it, without success.  It is a chunky yarn, and patterns for chunky yarns tend to produce big, oversized, garments.  I'm small, and I will drown in anything too big.  This autumn I got tired of waiting to find something, so I took ideas from two patterns and added some of my own and made it into something that I call my own pattern.

I wanted a cardigan or jacket with buttons down the front, with a collar, close fitting over chest and arms and tulip shape below.  The shape came from the Autumn dress pattern in the Knitting October 2010 issue, but with buttons in front and long sleeves and with the skirt made narrower and shorter but with the same aran cables on the yoke.  I followed the top down method in Wendy Barnard's Lettuce coat in her Custom knits book.  My stitch count is nearly the same as both.

It has all gone quite well.  All my knitted garments end up too small, and this one is no exception.  The top down pattern was easy to follow.  It started with provisional cast on for the back yoke.  I used my crochet cast on, and I did it in three sections, so that I could do the shoulders and back neck separately.  Then I knitted the back yoke downwards - the pattern had no shaping for the shoulders or neck.  I have taken few pictures and this is the only one I've got until the ones I took today.  Then I undid the cast on and put the stitches one by one on a needle for the fronts, one at a time.  The exciting part was picking up the stitches for the sleeves, and it worked out OK.  The short rows for shaping the top of the sleeve went fine too.  This is a method I will try again.  And now that I have done it once I will be able to do it without a pattern next time.

Joining front and back and working downwards was easy.  The cables on the yokes don't match perfectly.  I started the diamond in the wrong place on the back so it extends further down than the cables.  Personally I like cables on stocking stitch rather than reverse stocking stitch, so that's how I did it.  At this point I went back to doing the sleeves to see how much yarn they would take.  I know now that there is plenty left, so there was no need to worry.

The bit I enjoyed most was knitting the long rows of stocking stitch, although I find it tiring to knit with large needles.  Now I long for 4 ply knitting!  Overall I'm not very happy with my coat though.  I think the yarn looked better in hanks than knitted.  The stripes are too colourful for my liking.  As I remember it there were other shades available but all of them bright, and I picked this one as my favourite.

Now I only have the bottom ribbing to do, and finishing the right sleeve.  Then I have to devise a collar and pick up and knit the button bands.  And then it will be ready, with no sewing except for a few buttons.  I'm in no hurry now.