My first hand knitted jumper for dad.

Sorry for the dodgy pics. My photography is bad enough at the best of times and I'm still learning to use our new webcam. I hope some of the stitch definition came through anyway.

Front View
This is what happens when you want to photograph a large man's jumper on a medium woman's dress form. I had to extend the shoulders by pinning balls of wool underneath. That accounts for the slight bumpiness.

Dad decided he wanted a hand knitted jumper. More specifically he wanted a jumper with sleeves that would reach all the way to his wrists. Actually, that was his only specification. With arms like ours, that would always mean custom knitted. After a family outing to our local yarn shop we came away with 1.5 kilos of 8 ply yarn and a nice Aran style drop shoulder pattern. I'd never tried anything like this before but I was confident that I'd be able to figure it out.

The next question was, "What size?" After careful measurement dad asked me to make it a size bigger.

Me: "Are you sure?"
Dad: "Yes."
Me: "Are you really sure?"
Dad: "Yes."
Me: "Are you really, really, really sure?"
Dad: "Yes."
You get the general idea.

And I'm sure you can also guess the general direction of this story.
Having knitted all of the back and up to the neck on the front, dad tried the pieces on for size.

Dad: "It's too big."

(...very........long.........pause...)

Me: Takes deep breath. Then another one. And another. Stop just short of hyperventilation.
Me: "Riiiiiiiight."

How much do I love my dad? And, perhaps more telling, how dedicated am I to the principle of well fitting clothing? I can now say with complete confidence that it's enough to rip out a full six months' worth of knitting and redo the entire thing.

So I frogged and I frogged and I frogged and frogged. (For those unfamiliar with the term, frogging is one of two ways to undo knitting. You pull out the needles, grab the loose end and rip-it, rip-it, rip-it.) Then I skeined the yarn, which looked like a washing basket full of two minute noodles, wet the skeins and looped them over a broomstick on the back porch to dry.

Then I started again.

I knitted on the train, I knitted in the library, I knitted during Bible Study. I took it everywhere with me. In fact, it made everything a lot easier at family gatherings. All the women wanted to talk to me about knitting (about which I will happily chat for hours) and so they didn't hassle me about anything else. ;-)

Back View

The pattern as originally given was knitted flat and sewn together at the end. By this stage (after working on the bloody thing for half a year) I was familiar enough with the pattern - and bored enough with turning it - that I converted it to rounds, working back and forth once I reached the armholes. There was no problem with gauge changes because Aran knitting has enough knit and purl on each row to more or less even it out. The sleeves were picked up and worked down once I'd done the shoulder seams.
No seams! Whohoo!
I added a false seam (p1, k1tbl, p1) on each side which I continued down the underside of the sleeves. It hid the decreases rather well. I put some baby cables in the ribbing and changed the cables from a 8 round repeat to a 10 round repeat. It wasn't quite as cramped that way.

While it was a little frustrating, my second attempt was without a doubt a much better piece of knitting.

The centre panel is moss stitch/stocking stitch squares surrounded by two rib/reverse stocking stitch cables (yes, you read that right) broken up by garter stitch and twisted stitches, and finally trinity stitch on each side.

Left: Moss st/stocking st squares and rib with cables
Right: Rib/reverse stocking st cables on garter st background with twisted stitches.

Trinity stitch and false seam.
It's called "trinity stitch" because it goes three stitches into one, then one stitch into three ;-)

The sleeves are the same moss stitch/stocking stitch squares as the centre panel with the false seam continued down from the body.

The underside of the sleeve with false seam and decreases.

And you know what? Even with all the ripping I managed to get it done, blocking and all, by June 1 so dad could wear it for winter!

 

Epilogue

Dad wore it for the first time to the Blackheath Philosophy Forum up the mountains.
I got such a buzz from seeing him wear it.
His first words to me on his return were, "Sophie, how do you get red wine out of wool?"

At this point it ceased to be my responsibility.