Fresh off the needles: (Ugly) Christmas Sweater 2014

Through all the false starts, procrasti-knitting,  and general not wanting to knit the thing anymore, it's finally done and I even made my December 25th deadline! With 5 days to spare even! Not only is it my first annual Christmas sweater, it's my first ever completed sweater. And it's not too bad if I do say so myself.

Sometime during the beginning of my knitting journey I made that post on Tumblr. I can only assume at the time, I thought I'd never have the skills to knit even a plain sweater let alone a stranded sweater. But here I am, with a full blown stranded and steeked Christmas sweater.

My goal was to look like an extra from Wham's Last Christmas video. It took a hybrid of two patterns and a color chart to get what I was looking for. Those patterns are Vintersolverv from Knitty and 11-12 jumper with reindeer pattern from Drops Studio. I used the Knitty pattern as a base and kept some of the original color work, then I substituted the Drops pattern in for the unused Knitty color work. I also used a tree color pattern but I can't place the source. I even added beads to the trees to make them look more festive, just to add to the ugliness. I'll admit, I'm a little too proud of this sweater to truly think it's ugly.

A look inside at the armhole steek

The sweater is knit completely in the round with steeks at the armholes and neckline. I know a lot of people are afraid of steeks, but honestly it's really not that bad. As long as you reinforce them there's nothing to worry about. I used a standard crochet reinforcement but there's a few other alternatives. After I cut the steeks I picked up and knit the sleeves from the top down, which I wasn't crazy about at first, but ended up really liking it, and it may be my way of knitting sleeves.

I'll admit, as I was knitting this I was pretty convinced I wasn't going to finish it. Which is ridiculous since according to Ravelry, I started this on the 10th of August. Ridiculous, yes, but surprising, not so much. As I've talked about before I don't do well with deadlines, so knowing that about myself I decided it'd be best to start early because eventually I was going to put it off. Which I obviously did.

My third pathetic excuse for a swatch 

But my procrasti-knitting wasn't the only thing that held me back. It was mostly my insistence of not doing a decent gauge swatch. I ended up starting over at least three times.

The first time I swatched, I swatched (half-assly) a different color pattern, got gauge and then cast on. I was convinced I had twisted my cast on, so ripped out the ribbing and started again. A couple inches after the ribbing I decided I wasn't crazy about the color pattern and my gauge was off.(Surprise, surprise) So, I ripped it out, went up a needle size and decided that all was going to go well. It didn't and I was forced to rip back again and start over. Then when it came to the armhole then to the neckline I had some issues with row gauge. But it's in the past, lets not dwell on it. Needless to say, I was pretty fed up with the whole thing by September and put it away for two solid months. Lesson learned.

Even with all the hiccups and missteps I'm still really happy with it. And although I was swearing I was never going to knit another sweater ever again, I can already tell there are going to be a lot more sweaters in my near future.

Patterns: Vintersolverv from Knitty and 11-12 jumper with reindeer pattern from Drops Studio
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Sport
Ravelry Project Page

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