FO Friday: Husband’s Sweater!
Almost four months ago, I offered to make my husband a custom sweater. Last week, I finally finished it!
Model pose–isn't he handsome?
The sweater was, quite honestly, a giant pain in the behind. But it fits perfectly and looks great on him (if I do say so myself, heh). And most of the pain was my own fault. I showed him a bunch of sweater pictures and told him he could pick whatever features he wanted.
Instead of a stockinette raglan (as I’m told most men tend to want), he picked out an Elizabeth Zimmerman saddle-shouldered, seamless hybrid pullover with folded (sewn) hems, a henley neck opening, a hood, and a fairly complex cable detail on the edge of the hood.
Oy. I had never done saddle sleeves before, but I had a copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Without Tears and figured it couldn’t be too hard. I worked up a sketch and set to work.
Look how excited he was!
My original sketch, for posterity.
The turned hems went okay, but then I tried it on him and it was huge, even though I had swatched carefully and done all the math. Okay. I ripped it out and cast on 20 fewer stitches. This time I got about eight inches done before I tried it on him again. Still too big. After a good moan, I ripped it back to the beginning again and cast on 15 fewer stitches.
I slogged my way through the seemingly-endless stockinette of the body and sleeves. Then I got to the yoke.
Cue the ominous music.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the decrease section to look like the sweaters I saw on Ravelry or the picture in Knitting Without Tears. I spent hours gnashing my teeth and swearing as I ripped the top part out again and again. It was to the point where my husband started apologizing for requesting the sweater and asking me if I wanted to chuck the whole thing.
This only made me attack the sweater with renewed determination. I was not going to let it beat me. Finally, after hours of searching forums on Ravelry, I found one (1) post that explained the problem. I’m documenting it here, in the hopes that it will help some other poor soul, currently roaming the internet and cursing Elizabeth Zimmermann’s pithy directions.
The pictures I had been trying to copy, the ones I saw everywhere on Ravelry and blogs, were not, in fact, of the seamless hybrid. They are almost all pictures of a variation on the seamless hybrid, called the seamless hybrid with shirt yoke. The kicker? Hardly any of these pictures mention that they’re of the variation. Even on Ravelry, where there’s a separate listing for the shirt yoke variation, most of the (several hundred) finished sweaters are categorized incorrectly as the plain vanilla seamless hybrid.
Here are pictures to illustrate what I’m talking about:
The seamless hybrid : note the vertical lines at the back
seamless hybrid with shirt yoke (shamelessly stolen from Brooklyn Tweed): note that the line is horizontal
Once I figured out what the sweater was supposed to look like, and with hubby’s blessing to do the vertical lines instead of horizontal, I managed to finish the yoke and chug through the hood. Then it was just a matter of grafting the underarms, blocking, and it was finished!
Yes, he is a keeper.
The specs:
Pattern: My own, with (somewhat sketchy at times) help from Elizabeth Zimmermann.
Yarn: Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool. This was the only yarn I had in the stash in enough quantity. It worked out okay, although it’s a little scratchier than I normally like. But I washed the sweater in some cheap hair conditioner and it softened up nicely.
Notes: Gah. So happy this is done.
Gorgeous sweater (and lovely husband, as well)! Sometime in the new year I’ll be embarking on my next husband sweater, also self-designed. Hope it turns out half as well as yours did.
That sweater is awesome! And love that your hubby is telling everyone his wife made it and its the best sweater ever ;)
You rock!
Gorgeous! I love the cable detail on the hood.