The Accidental Sweater

What have I been up to the last few weeks? I’m so glad you asked!

I finished my first sweater!

My first ever sweater!

I knit up Tin Can Knit’s Flax sweater with  some awesome yarn I picked up from Knit Picks during their summer sale. Summer sales are the best aren’t they? I managed to get all the yarn for my sweater for around $30! That’s crazy!

Another crazy thing….I have yarn leftover, like four skeins worth. Yes, you heard me right…errr read me right…read this right? Uhhh… anywho! This being my first sweater, I double checked and triple checked all the measurements; from my personal measurements to gauge swatches. I even swatched the ribbing section! And then I proceeded to use the opposite needles by mistake.

Yes, instead of casting on and doing the initial ribbing with the smaller size (7) needle, I cast on with the larger size (9). Then instead of continuing with the larger size, which would have pretty much guaranteed the correct gauge, I switched back to the smaller size.

Imagine my panic when I realized this halfway through the body of the sweater! I look down, look at my pattern, look down again, look at my pattern again….and screamed while running to the nearest mirror! I was quickly followed by my husband who thought I was dying, only to find me trying to stuff myself in to my current knitting project. He’s laughing, I’m having a knitting induced panic attack until……..it fits!

Wait what? Bear with me here. When I was measuring and choosing a size, I chose one size up. I figured I would rather have a sweater too big than too small. Makes sense right? Well apparently when I was doing all that swatching, I was swatching a flat piece instead of in the round. *face palm* Turns out my knitting in the round is waaaaaaaay looser than flat. Because of those things together, the sweater came out exactly the right size it needed to be. Thank goodness!

Lesson learned: swatch correctly for the project you are making. Also, use the right needles.

Up close of arm detail

tl;dr I knit a sweater. I messed it up, but it turned out okay anyway. I now wear said sweater every opportunity I take.

Sweater meet evergreen

I”m on the fence about the oversized ribbing. I’m thinking about frogging the ribbing and re-knitting with the smaller size needle. It wouldn’t match the neck band….but I think it might be worth it. What do you guys think?

Oversized ribbing