Thursday, November 01, 2007

The accidental sweater.


There were questions about this sweater when I posted a photo of it, so here are some details.

It is a seamless sweater in the EZ Percentage System style, the saddle-shoulder method discussed in Knitting Without Tears. It's the same decrease method used on the Steeked Jacket. I knit it on size ten and a half needles, with Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted.

Originally, I was just curious about how the decreasing method worked. I had two skeins of beige yarn sitting around, so I cast on 200 stitches (the number of stitches EZ uses for her example) and knit upward, doing nothing but the yoke, just to see how it worked. When it was done, I was looking at it, and realized if it had arms and a body, it would fit me. So I got another color of yarn (I figured matching the beige would be impossible, and it'd be dumb to try), picked up the stitches at the bottom of the yoke, and knit downward, making the sleeves and body.

At the end of it, totally without a plan, I wound up with a pretty nice sweater. It used less yarn than I expected - six or seven skeins, total. And it went quickly.

I need to knit a couple dozen more in different colors.

3 comments:

Amy Lane said...

Such a striking look--I love how accidental stuff looks best!!!!

roxie said...

Serendipity. It's wonderful how necessity mothers invention.

Donna Lee said...

That looks like a perfect sweater. Comfortable and warm and loose enough to be able to move but not baggy. I am once again in awe of your creativity and knowledge.