I have been participating in another Elizabeth Zimmerman knitalong hosted by the lovely Kate from fabrickated, and this time we did the raglan sleeve version from Knitting without Tears.
I finished it a few days ago, but the weather wasn’t conducive to wearing warm jumpers – it’s been glorious! Anyway, today it went a bit pear shaped and I was happy to get out the jumper and start thinking about how I was going to style it. I’ll just mention that in the photos below I have wet hair as I got caught in the rain.
The Itch-to-Stitch Danube jeans skirt made from denim left over from my sofa covering adventures proved to be perfect, as was my scarf knitted from qiviut yarn, which I bought in Canada.
I’m not sure what to say about this jumper. It is made entirely from random balls of wool found in my stash. The weights varied a bit, so I used the wraps per inch method to ensure that I didn’t mess up the tension. I used two strands of yarn for a couple of these colours – namely the brown and the orangey-red. I also geeked out a bit and matched my sleeves exactly to the body, but might make another one with more interesting sleeves.
I used provisional cast on for the hems, and initially made the jumper quite short, then lost my nerve and added length, which of course I regret a bit now. A lot of frogging (ripping out) went on here and there and I was initially going to do a turned hem, but finished up with a garter stitch hem, which I split and the back is slightly longer than the front. The sleeves have got turned hems as has the neckline.
The neckline is another area that gave me pause. I didn’t want to rib it as I hadn’t ribbed anywhere else, so I did a little turned hem. You might notice in the photo above that this had an interesting effect – I have a strange shaped neck. I was going to redo it, but thought I’d wait and see how it was when I wore it. You can’t actually tell that it’s odd, so I’m leaving it. For now!
I’m not sure how the others fared, but I got in such a mess with eight balls of wool on the go at once that I started cutting the wool. My seams are not as nice as I would have liked. I knitted into the stitch below to get rid of the jogs, but I still wasn’t happy so used some of the wool ends to embroider over the joins. This meant that my seams are slightly bulky. I am going to have a look at how I can better manage multiple balls for the next one, which is already on my needles. Any suggestions will be gratefully received!