Chuck Sweater by Andi Satterlund

Please forgive the dark photo of me looking somewhat stressed. Must make more effort!

Despite not posting recently, I have been making stuff. In fact I have made another Liberty lawn shirt for Charlie (got to make the most of him not yet - at eight-years old -  being "too cool" to wear home-made garments!), a shirt with a tie collar for myself,I have half made a green skirt (in progress) and half knitted another Chuck.

I hadn't knitted for ages, unless you count socks (I always have at least one pair of lacy socks on the go) but then I saw Lladybird's truly magnificent sweater.  I mean, TRULY.  I ordered the pattern straight away, and the yarn, and got to it.  Eight days of frantic knitting later, it was finished.

This is a relatively easy pattern to knit, even for someone that has only ever knitted two cardigans (with bobbles!) and a bunch of shawls.  Even the laciest shawls are more straightforward (in my experience) than garments that have to wearable.  Partly due to fitting issues, and partly due to the fact that the order of knitting the different bits of a garment can be so varied.  Knitters will know what I mean. This one is seamless, and knitted from the top down.  I had a wobbly moment where I didn't trust one of the instructions in the pattern and I was in such a hurry, and there was no one that could help with my particular query, even on Ravelry, though they tried very hard to assist, and so I mailed Lauren at Lladybird and, guess what, she mailed me back practically by return, for which I was so grateful.  Turned out I was wrong and the pattern was right, anyway!  For the record, I also mailed the designer and she got back to me as soon as she could and was very helpful, but Lauren was the knitting saviour that day!  It never ceases to amaze me how many crafters are so helpful to dorks such as myself!

Back to the jumper.  Okay, it's a bit short on me, but despite that I like it a lot.  It's better with high-waisted skirts and trousers.  It's knitted in Cascade 220, as recommended in the pattern, and on the same size needles as recommended, too.  It's a little too large across the back because my tension was looser when I started, but it's something I can live with.  As I said, I'm knitting another one in red, and if I have enough yarn it will be longer but only by an inch or so.

I have a shirt I'd like to blog but have to get around to taking photos, which I am very lazy about.