And I WROTE the damn thing

Back in 2007, I wrote a blog post about a sweater that I put together based on one that a TV character was wearing.  In case you missed it, here's the link.  I ended up making 2 sweaters using the natural white Fisherman's Brand Wool from Lion Brand.  I love the pattern and, in fact, I wore one of them on Sunday when I was shoveling snow and never felt a bit of cold.  I love it.

Last year I bought a beautiful Valley Yarns burgundy wool for a project that I later decided not to make.  I thought it would be perfect for a new jumper and I knew just which pattern I wanted to use - the pretty man sweater.

One thing to keep in mind that this is a pattern that I wrote and have made twice.  That will be important later.

I downloaded the pattern and made an adjustment right away.  The fisherman's rib, or brioche stitch, is a very stretchy stitch.  It's effectively a double knit stitch and has a huge amount of give to it.  In my pattern, I didn't use any sort of rib on it but then I had issues with the cast on being too rigid.  This time I decided to start with a provisional cast on that will allow the garment to stretch to its heart's content before I go back and add whatever I'm going to add for the bottom edge.  That should give it a better edge.

All's good, I got it started and knit to the armhole shaping.  This particular pattern has raglan sleeves outlined by a simple cable.  As I started this shaping THE FIRST TIME, I goofed and decided to add the decreases on the wrong side since I was doing the cables on the right side.  It wasn't until I'd got through the 3rd cable crossing (18 rows in) that I realized that doing the decrease on the wrong side was the wrong thing.  All the nice stitches was on the inside with the decreases.  The outside didn't look terrible but it wasn't right.  So I ripped it out to the beginning of the cabling.  Not a terribly easy thing with this stitch but I did it because it was the right thing to do.

OK.  Got it ripped out and back on the needles and started off again.  I got to the 5th (30 rows in0 cable twist when I realized it wasn't shaping right.  It has narrowed too quickly and I was running out of stitches.  This happened last night when I had sat down to knit 2 simple rows before I went to bed.  It was late.  I realized I hadn't paid attention to the pattern.  I got cocky and didn't look at the pattern.
So I pulled it up and, sure enough, I was supposed to decrease every 4th row, not every 2nd row. Even I know that will make a difference. My question is, how could I have not known this?  How did I not even look at the pattern?  I wrote the damn thing!

A Bit Unusual

It’s a bit unusual but I’ve decided I like it. It’s terribly comfortable and I think this Malabrigo yarn will work much better in this sort of garment than in a sweater. It’s such a loosely spun single ply that it pills all over the place with the wear of a sweater. This design was based on a pattern I saw in a Godey’s Ladies Book for a young boy’s Body Warmer. The picture showed it wrapped around the child under a jacket or worn under other clothes (I’ll try to find the original picture and scan it in for you to see). It intrigued me so I used a stitch pattern that I saw in quite a few other patterns. I’ve used it before, particularly in the ‘pretty man sweater’ or fisherman’s sweater (whichever, both work for me). In these 19th century patterns it’s called brioche stitch and I’ve seen it mentioned under that name and under the name, fisherman’s stitch. I learned the stitch from an Elizabeth Zimmerman article in an old Vogue Knitting magazine. There’s even this web page dedicated to the stitch and it’s variations, if you’re interested.

The way I learned to do it is to K1, knit in the stitch below the next stitch, and repeat across. The way the Godey’s Ladies Book describes it is:

Stitch Brioche, thread forward, slip 1, knit 2 together, the same backwards and forwards. (It might be better said to bring the thread to the front, slip 1 stitch, bring the thread to the back so that there are 2 stitches laying together, then knit the next 2 stitches)

Either way, you get the same pattern. And it’s a pattern you have to be a little patient with because you won’t really see it until you’ve worked 5-6 rows, at least. I also think that if you were going to use it in the round, you would need to use the version from Godey’s. And it makes things much easier if you work it over an odd number of stitches.

I finished my newest Fiber Trends felted clogs (sorry, I called them slippers before – I stand corrected) and had enough yarn left over that I made a pair of felted mittlets (my own pattern). You probably can’t see it in the picture but I did a little bit of textured stitching that just gives it a little somethin’ somethin’ up close. They fit great. All I did was cast on 36 stitches, did several rows of garter, knit plain for a while, increased for the thumb (until I had 18 stitches between the markers), knit a few rows plain, decreased the 18 thumb stitches, knit plain for a while and ended with several rows of garter. Oh, yeah, and I threw in the textured rows just for kicks.

I love these Fiber Trend felted clogs. I made my first pair 6 years ago and finally decided after they started falling apart that it might be time to make a new pair. And they only take a couple of hours to make. Bonus!

Now I have matching slippers and mittlets. Could come in useful this winter, right?