The Ballad of the Brown V-neck Sweater

Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re careening toward the end of the year like a drunk squirrel on ice skates?

I realized today that I only have two weeks left before my two-week holiday, and I am so. ready. At the same time, I feel like I have a million things to finish before then. Paradoxes, am I right?

I’m pretty sure the panic I’m trying to squelch comes from still having several projects I want to complete before the end of the year. I’m getting closer. And I have a shot.

As I mentioned last Monday, I already published the Trailfinder Hat, and I have another design in the same collection to publish later this week that I will be very happy to have out in the world, the Lothlorien Fingerless Mittens.

In addition, yesterday I finished a sweater for my son Jude that has been in works since September 2019.

Oh, does this sweater have a saga of woe.

What’s that? You want to hear it? How kind of you to ask. :-)

Several years ago, I decided I wanted to start teaching myself sweater design. My husband has a ribbed V-neck sweater that I thought might be a good one to try and emulate as a learning project. So I got busy. I would be designing mine to fit my oldest son, Jude, who was in grade 12 at the time.

I ordered the yarn, did the swatch, did the math, created the pattern outline, and got to work.

According to the metadata on this photo, I was finally winding yarn in preparation to knit on February 18, 2020. I suspect this was for the extra yarn I had to order later, since I started the project on October 14, 2019, according to Ravelry.

By the time I finished the front, the back, and one sleeve, I realized I wouldn’t have enough yarn to complete it, so I went and searched for more. I was using an undyed natural yarn, though, so when I ran out my original yarn about two inches into the second sleeve and switched to the new stuff, I could immediately see that the new yarn was at least one or two shades darker.

Maybe it won’t be that noticeable, I thought.

It was.

Wound and ready to go. And the tea is almost gone… (Image shows a flat lay of a cake of dark brown yarn on a wooden tabletop next to the yarn label (Cascade Ecological Wool), an almost-empty mug of tea, and with the ball winder and swift at the edges of the photo.)

Since I had already come so far, though, I finished the sleeve, steam-blocked everything, and basted the design together for Jude to try on.

Sadly, the change in yarn colour wasn’t the only issue.

• The sleeves were waaaay too long.

• I had forgotten to go up a needle size after the hem when knitting the back, so the back piece was too small.

• The unique sleeve cap shaping that I thought I was copying straight from that other sweater wasn’t quite fitting into the armhole smoothly because of a sharp-ish corner.

• And that colour change on the sleeve was as noticeable as a flashing neon sign.

I took measurements, took notes, made a plan for how to fix the issue, and got to work… again.

Round 1 after basting it together, showing the weird armhole fit.

The plan involved ripping out the back and both sleeves to fix the sleeve length issue, the back needle size issue, and also so I could re-knit the back using the darker yarn where it would be less noticeable and save the lighter yarn for the sleeves. However, I believe I got as far as ripping it all out before I got stalled and put the project aside.

This was during a low-knitting-mojo period of my life, but, in addition, the pandemic hit. Once it did, I found it hard to focus on anything big and complicated and resorted to knitting dishcloth after dishcloth… then not knitting much else at all during 2020, thanks to the stresses and extreme busy-ness of that year.

Still progress

Slowly, over the next two years, I re-knit the pieces of the sweater in fits and spurts. A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to finish this project and get it out of my hair (no longer certain it would even fit Jude), so I put a burn on to make the last piece, which happened to be the second sleeve.

Then I sewed the whole thing together and had him try it on… only to discover that the revised sleeve cap shaping still created a weird pucker at the front and back of the shoulder. (At least it fit otherwise.)

I pouted for a few hours, then got back to work. Again, again. (I really wanted this out of my hair.)

I redesigned the sleeve cap (using some rather clever shaping tricks that I’ve never used before and which I’ll tuck into my toolkit for other projects), took the sleeves off the sweater, frogged the caps only, and reknit them in the new shape.

It still wasn’t enough. And the sleeves were still too long, and they kind of bunched up a bit in the armpits. (Jude insisted it was fine, other than the sleeve length, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing him wear it as-is.)

I stewed on it overnight, then had Jude try the sweater on again so I could take measurements and notes. This time, I saw the problem right away. And there were two options to fix it. One would fix the sleeve cap shaping issue only, and the other—which would take much more work—would also resolve the underarm bunching.

At that point, I was tired. I just wanted to be done. And I already knew that the really real fix would require changing some subtle shaping issues around the armhole on the front and back pieces too—and that wasn’t going to happen. So I went with fixing the sleeve cap shaping only.

And yesterday afternoon, I pronounced it dead finished.

And—warm my heart—I just saw that my son voluntarily decided to wear it on this chilly winter day. Yay!

Here are some photos he let me take after finishing yesterday:

Check out this handsome kid! He makes my sweater look good. If only the light in our house was better, but that’s December for you…

I love the yellow edging. I think it totally brightens up the brown.

I learned at every step of the way… including that I would do this V-neck differently the next time around for a crisper point in the centre.

My initial goal with the project, besides making a sweater for my son, was to learn more about sweater design. Which I did. After all that ripping and knitting, I learned a lot.

When I saw how much work would be required for the “real” fix of this design’s sleeves, I opted for this one to be a learning prototype only. (There had been a few other “hmm, I should have done that differently” moments too.) I will likely revise and remake it as a pattern to sell at some point… but I need a mental break from it first.

However, between this project and my recent discovery of how much easier Excel spreadsheets make grading patterns, I’m now overflowing with new sweater design ideas. I even swatched a new cabled sleeveless turtleneck idea last week, which I’m very excited to make.

Let’s just hope that doesn’t take three years to finish, too. :-)

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Fun fact: the very first sweater I ever made was also for Jude. I made it from a pattern in a knitting magazine while I was pregnant with him, and all three of my babies wore it. (Levi was already too big for it by the time we got him.) Here’s a photo of Jabin in it at just under a year… the only one who was able to wear it that long.

Jabin in the lime green baby sweater I made when Jude was a baby, only a year or so after I learned to knit. Looks like it needed a wash! Jabin was 11 months old here. (That extra-long space between the top and second button? That was an error in the pattern. I later made another one in a larger size, and it had the same problem. I wasn’t experienced enough as a knitter yet to notice it while knitting or know how to fix it on my own.)