My husband and I have been together since 2002, and during our relationship I went through many phases of knitting. First there was the “it’s winter and knitting hats is better than studying” stage while we were in university together, then there was “I’m going to be a mother so I should work with my hands” phase while I was pregnant, followed quickly by the “I need something to keep me busy or the kids are going to drive me crazy” phase. Then the spinning started, and then the weaving, and it’s safe to say yarn has been pretty consistent throughout our relationship. I even taught him to knit at one point, but I think he might have been just using it as an excuse to spend more time with me – he hasn’t kept it up.
Throughout all that history, I have not knit him a sweater. Many hats, a few mitts, a scarf or two, even some socks, but never a sweater. I wasn’t really afraid of the sweater curse, I just didn’t have the attention span for what felt like such a big project.
(for those of you who know me well – yes, I’ll knit a full size shawl with lace weight yarn no problem, but a sweater with thicker yarn was too much. I don’t have to make sense)
I figured it was high time to make a change, so as I was finishing up the kids sweaters, I started looking for possibilities for him.
I started with the yarn – Paton’s Classic Wool Worsted. The reasoning behind it was price, availability, and I loved the colour. I used, I think, about 5.5 balls, but I forgot to weigh the leftovers to see exactly how much. I bought 7 just to be safe. Once I had the yarn, I did a few swatches with different sized needles, washed and blocked them. This yarn bloomed a lot when washed (as most commercial yarn does) so I wanted an accurate gauge. From the gauge I chose the sweater – I love how Ravelry allows you to search from so many different paramaters.
Which brings us to the pattern – Hverir (springs). I was drawn to it for the texture, the cozyness, the way it looked like the perfect sweater to wrap up in and relax.
Now, this was a surprise sweater, and my kids are 9 and 11, so not always very good at keeping secrets. I had to knit this sweater only when I was home alone, and make sure all traces of it were hidden away. I also couldn’t post pictures of it on social media since my husband follows me. I did manage a couple pictures on Ravelry, but it was so hard not to share the progress!
It was a really well written pattern, very clear and easy to follow, and I didn’t feel the need to make any adjustments or changes. I did use a tubular cast on and cast off (because it’s the best), and I did use short rows to add a bit of shaping to the back of the neck (for a better fit). You can see the details on my Ravelry project page.
The few sweaters I have done in the past have all been top down, so doing a sweater bottom up was a new experience for me. I wish I had a picture of the night I sat in Starbucks with a friend joining the body and sleeves with cables and yarn everywhere – it was not a graceful thing, and lessons were learned. It was a really fun process though, and decreasing toward the end felt really good. I also really, really love the shoulder details:
All in all, very pleased with this sweater, as was my husband. I think it could have been a couple inches longer (I forgot to take notes on row gauge and guessed…poorly), but my husband has no complaints and says it fits him great – quite an accomplishment since I was working off his shirts and didn’t actually measure him.
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