FO Friday: Sweaters for Boyfriends

I call this sweater "Plucky Guilt" because of all the Plucky Matt has bought for me over the past few years. One of the reasons he's a good guy is that he has seen my stash...

(ALL of my stash) and even helped me move 2 years worth of yarn halfway across the country. He reserves his guilt because he knows that buying yarn makes me happy and it's good to know that I will never have to hide my stash from him.

Good guy yarn supporter should be a new Knitting Meme.

Anywho. I knit Matt two sweaters before this and both were special occasion sweaters. After three years of being together I figured the sweater curse couldn't get us, so I took the plunge and knit him a simple Elizabeth Zimmerman pullover in some Patons Classic Merino. It was actually the first sweater I'd ever knit, making it extra special.

Seamless Raglan Pullover

I'm not sure why I didn't do a rib at the bottom of the sweater, but now I'm kind of regretting it. To make this sweater fit so well I measured Matt's favorite sweater, which he still owns & loves, and used that as a guide for making the perfect fitting sweater. And it did! Except it was a bit short.

Smokin'

This second sweater was a bit of a flub up in terms of sizing. To be honest, this whole pattern was a mess and needs to be reworked since it is such a good sweater. Be sure to read the errata and Ravelry pattern notes included by other knitters because they helped me a lot. I used a much lighter yarn (Eco+ <3) than the pattern calls for and did the math to try and make up for it. Unfortunately, I miscalculated and should have knit the third smallest size instead of the second. I also need to choose some bigger buttons because these keep popping out. Ah well. He still wears it.

Brownstone is the sweater I finished this week. It's another Jared Flood pattern (<3 swoon <3) and this one is much, much better. I would even venture to say that this is my favorite sweater I've ever knit and I want to knit him at least one more at some point. I knit my swatch flat for this, despite it being a pullover, because I know that I tend to tighten up just a smidge when I knit in the round. And this time it worked out because it fits like a glove. 

Even better is that this yarn is DEEP stash stuff that I bought before I moved to Philly. I scored a bag of Ella Rae Classic Merino for $29, meaning this sweater cost less than $15 to complete. AND I still have enough leftover to knit myself a sweater too. I'll throw in a couple of stripes and probably turn it into a cardigan so we don't match, but I really enjoyed working with this yarn. It's a great workhorse yarn and not *too* scratchy. I still need to wash and block it, but Matt insisted on wearing it out that same night to a drag show.

Action shot at the drag show

I did make some modifications to ensure the fit I wanted. I figured Matt wouldn't be too into the toggles, so I took a gamble and moved the neckline up a bit. To do this I kept knitting past where the pattern said to bind off the front center stitches (at about 12 inches) and continued to work in the round until where the V-neck shaping started (about 14 inches). From there I followed the pattern as written. Once I got to the collar I had to do a bit more improvising and didn't really pay much attention to placing stitch markers on the sweater front.

Et voila! The whole sweater took about two weeks to knit, including weaving in ends and sewing up underarms, which usually tacks on an extra week or two since I hate, hate, hate finishing things. I might sew down the collar so it doesn't pop up, but we shall see. I know myself and I know my, "maybe I'll do this..." and I don't have a great track record. 

Ravelry link: Plucky Guilt

Pattern: Brownstone by Jared Flood

Yarn: Ella Rae Classic Worsted

Needles: 5&6

August 12th - 27th

Incidentally, The New Yorker published an interesting article about the history of knitting and dun, dun, dun...The Sweater Curse. It's actually a pretty good read, but, obviously, I'm not too superstitious when it comes to knitting a sweater for my boyfriend. Expect to see another Brownstone in Matt's future.