This is a remake of this cro­cheted sweater that I made a long time ago. I had been wear­ing it less and less fre­quent­ly ever since some­one com­ment­ed that it looked like an armor :S (I think it was meant to be a com­pli­ment) so I fig­ure I’d unrav­el it and make it into some­thing with a more soft­ened look.

I tried mak­ing the beau­ti­ful Feb­ru­ary Lady Cardi­gan a while ago but was­n’t suc­cess­ful. But I real­ly like the lace pat­tern in the cardi­gan, so I tried to adapt the pat­tern into some­thing that I could man­age (i.e. with­out hav­ing to knit in the round).

And this was the result! The bulky lace reminds me of trees in the winter.

 

It has a bit of a cowl neck. Or one could roll down the col­lar for a more sculp­tur­al look.

(It’s been dif­fi­cult to take good pic­tures in the apart­ment in the win­ter when there’s no day­light left when I come home from work, so I put this black & white fil­ter on and hoped that it comes across sort of stylish…)

Any­way, here’s my pat­tern adap­ta­tion of Eliz­a­beth Zim­mer­man­n’s Feb­ru­ary Baby Sweater, in the mid­dle of Feb­ru­ary :D It’s a very quick make. Took me sev­er­al week­ends while watch­ing Har­ry Pot­ter movies.

What I used: 

Approx. 700 yards of Patons Shet­land Chunky, in grey. (my sweater is kind of a cropped style, but if I had more yarn I’d prob­a­bly make it longer)

7mm and 6.5mm needles

Stitch mark­ers or pins

Nee­dle for sewing

Fin­ished size: bust 38″ / length 17″ / arm open­ing cir­cum­fer­ence 14″ / neck open­ing cir­cum­fer­ence 18″ (Size eas­i­ly mod­i­fi­able. Sug­ges­tions for mod­i­fy­ing size in pat­tern below.)

What I did:

This sweater is knit­ted flat. The front and back are knit­ted in one piece with some stitch­es bound off and then cast back on to cre­ate neck open­ing. Then stitch­es are picked up along the sides to knit the arm bands. The sides are then seamed. And final­ly the col­lar is knitted.

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Gull Lace pat­tern, from Eliz­a­beth Zim­mer­man­n’s Knit­ter’s Almanac, with slight mod­i­fi­ca­tion (I just added a knit stitch in the begin­ning and end of each row):

Rows 1 and 3 (WS): k1, p to last st, k1

Rows 2 (RS): k1, *k1, k2tog, YO, k1, YO, ssk, k1* rep from * to * till last st, k1

Row 4 (RS): k1, *k2tog, YO, k3, YO, ssk* rep from * to * till last st, k1

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Body:

With larg­er nee­dle, CO 58.

(The Gull Lace pat­tern is worked over a mul­ti­ple of 7 stitch­es, so to make a larg­er size, one can add mul­ti­ple of 7 stitch­es from num­ber of CO. One pat­tern repeat or 7 stitch­es = 2.25″)

Knit 9 rows.

Begin Gull Lace pat­tern rows 1–4. Repeat Rows 1–4 until piece is 17 inch­es from begin­ning, or desired length. End with row 1 or 3.

Next row (neck open­ing): work 15 st in pat­tern, BO 28 st, work remain­ing 15 st in pattern.

(If you have added more stitch­es in the begin­ning, you can per­haps divide the shoulder/neck/shoulder stitch­es as follows:
Added 7 stitch­es ‑ work 15 st in pat­tern, BO 35, work 15 st in pattern
Added 14 stitch­es — work 22 st in pat­tern, BO 28, work 22 st in pattern
Added 21 stitch­es — work 22 st in pat­tern, BO 35, work 22 st in pattern)

Next row: k1, p14, CO 28, p14, k1. (or adjust num­ber of stitch­es as list­ed above)

Con­tin­ue in pat­tern until piece is 17 inch­es from neck open­ing, or same length as the oth­er side, end with row 1 or 3.

Knit 9 rows, BO.

Arm bands/sleeves:

On the side seam, find the mid point that divides front and back. Mark this point with stitch mark­er or pin. Mea­sure 7″ (or length as desired) down the side seam from the mid point, mark this point. Mea­sure 7″ (or same length as the oth­er side) up the side seam from the mid point, mark this point. Remove mark­er at mid point.

With small­er nee­dles and right side fac­ing, pick up 44 stitch­es even­ly along side seam from mark­er to mark­er (or more stitch­es if added more length; gen­er­al­ly 1 stitch per row). Knit 6 rows, BO. Repeat on the oth­er arm.

Sew side seams from under­arm to bot­tom of sweater.

Col­lar:

With small­er nee­dles and right side fac­ing, pick up stitch­es even­ly around neck open­ing. Knit every row until col­lar is 3.5″ tall (or desired length). BO, weave in ends.

(One could use cir­cu­lar nee­dle or DPNs and knit in the round. I’m not real­ly good at knit­ting in the round, but I inher­it­ed these flex­i­ble nee­dles from my mom, so the col­lar is knit­ted back and forth and then seamed. Does­n’t look as great as if it were knit­ted in the round, but it worked out :D)

 

This was a fun knit! And a cozy lay­er­ing piece for Feb­ru­ary :D

Hope every­one has a good week!