Where are they now? Brown cable knit sweater

Good old social media, for being an online scrap book of my prior makes and projects. I’m not a physical scrap-booker, I would never have printed out photos and kept them in a folio somewhere. So without the joys of Instagram and YouTube, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that I was working on this project back in March 2021 and spoke about in on my YouTube channel. According to that video, I first cast it on back before the start of the pandemic, because I say in that episode of the Craft & Thrift podcast, that I put it down when the pandemic started. It was too complicated for my brain to handle at the time so it languished for a year, until I restarted it in March 2021.

The thumbnail from that March 2021 episode, showing the cable knit sweater in pieces

This yarn originally started out life as a cable knit cardigan, the Snoqualmie by Michele Wang. That pattern was fun to knit but ultimately not the right design for my wardrobe, it always felt quite fussy and I was constantly adjusting the shawl collar. Eventually I decided it was better to reuse the yarn, it was from Jamiesons of Shetland in this lovely brick colourway. It didn’t feel right to leave it languishing in an unloved item of clothing, so I frogged it. You can see the Snoqualmie on the right below. I might try that pattern again in the future, I think my improved knitting skills might make more of a success of it the second time around.

The pattern I decided to try instead, was a vintage one; Hayfield 00541. You can see it on the left in the gallery above, including a little inset picture of the version I had made previously. I made the boy’s version in a green DK from New Lanark and I love and still have that sweater. I foolishly thought it would be easy enough to reproduce that look in my brick red yarn…

I don’t appear to have taken many photos of the in-progress of this sweater, but here is the completed article. As you can see, it didn’t fit particularly well. It was too wide across the shoulders, and one of the sleeve heads had been poorly inserted, giving it a Tudor-style puffed sleeve. The sleeves were too long and the bottom hem hit at an awkward point, right at the widest part of my hips. Overall, it didn’t do my short frame any favours and I only wore it a couple of times before I realised these errors were deal breakers.

It’s not the official knitting way of correcting a mistake, but since this project was knit from the top down for both the body and the sleeves, it’s hard to correct a problem like length without literally frogging the entire project and reknitting it shorter. I was impatient and, by this point, over this project. It had been dragging on for years, between knitting then frogging the original Snoqualmie, then reknitting the yarn and realising it was still an issue. So I measured where I wanted the body to come to, added an inch for lost yarn (since when you cut through knitting, you’re going to lose half an inch or so with partly cut yarn you have to unpick) and chopped the body short. Once I’d removed the loose and cut yarns, I picked up and knit the cuffed bottom hem.

As you can see above, the new length was much more appropriate but the sleeves were still too long. I wore it in this format a few times, to get a feel for how the shortened body changed the style, but decided the sleeves also needed the chop. So I went back and did the same as with the body, measured to wear I wanted the length and cut around one inch longer. I decided to go for slightly cropped, three quarter length sleeves. I’m not 100% sold on these to be honest, I feel constantly like I need to pull them down, but I do think this new format makes it more wearable for those transitional days.

Although I live in Scotland, and the weather can be chilly in the winter, it’s not so cold that I need a plethora of thick woolies to survive. I’ve actually come to the recent realisation that layering is a more effective way to deal with the changeable climate. There’s an old joke that in Scotland you can experience all four seasons in one day. That is probably a more accurate representation of the weather than the traditional ‘thick blanket of snow’ image. Three quarter sleeves and a cropped length in the body will hopefully make this sweater more wearable throughout the year, rather than just the depths of winter. I love the colour and I’m pleased to finally have the yarn used. I finished it off with a vintage ‘Made in Scotland from 100% wool’ label I salvaged from a jacket and it’s the perfect finishing touch.

I thought it would be interesting to place each photo side by side, to directly compare. The lower row were taken after the body was shortened but before the sleeves were cropped, whereas the top row are the sweater in its final form. I have the same shots of each, to allow direct comparison, which is super interesting to see! I’m going to take a note to try to take the same series of photos each time now, to allow a direct comparison if I end up altering a piece of clothing.

And finally, a direct comparison of the initial sweater (on the right) versus the final sweater (on the left). I think the final version looks a lot more modern personally and writing this post has got me excited to wear it this coming cooler season!