Woo. Bloody. Hoo. I love this sweater!
Pattern: Vivian (Ravelry pattern page) by Ysolda Teague from Twist Collective, Winter 2008
Yarn: Cascade Eco Plus in Plum (0508), 3 skeins
Purchased at: WEBS
Needles: Addi Turbo US 7
Gauge: 16 st and 26 rows to 4 inches in seed stitch
Size: 34, but with mods
Ease*: about 0.75″ negative ease
Started: January 31, 2009
Finished: March 6, 2009
Mods: Swapped the zipper out for a one-inch wide, seed stitch buttonband; lengthened the hood by adding about 12 extra rows before starting the hood decreases; changed the hood decreases to maintain the cable pattern.
The Pattern: This is both my first pattern by Ysolda Teague and my first pattern from the glorious Twist Collective. The pattern itself is as beautifully crafted as the finished product, incorporating waist shaping, seamless set-in sleeves and saddle shoulders while maintaining the flow of the cable pattern from the body and sleeves up through the shoulders and onto the hood. I’m sure not everyone agrees, but for me it was a treat to knit; not knowing ahead of time how the structure would come together, I was constantly amazed at how easily and seamlessly such a complex sweater could be created. The only thing I would change if I knit this again would be to shorten the sleeves by about an inch. I think the give of the seamless construction (without the usual stability of a seamed set-in sleeve) allows the sleeves to stretch even more and they come down to my knuckles, which is a little awkward for activities like cooking and knitting. But it’s still the absolute perfect cozy-up, be-warm, throw-on-after-a-long-day-of-skiing sweater.
Far and beyond, the hardest part of knitting this sweater is setting up the cables and seed stitch panels in the first few rows. Once you get past the first cable cross in row 4, it’s smooth sailing up to the saddle shoulder decreases. I had to rip my cast-on and first few rows no fewer than 5 times as I juggled the size decisions, buttonband alterations and pattern set-up. So persevere! I liken it to the first 15 minutes of a 13 mile run. You feel tired and sluggish, your feet don’t seem to be working together, you think you’ll never make it through the whole 13 miles and you should just go home now and knit. But then you get over that hump and before you know it, you’re at mile 12, feeling good and on your way home. Hmm…..I might be trying to psych myself up for my long run today too…. Anyway, push through! The result is well-worth the agonizing effort of the first few rows. I know some knitters put different color markers around each cable or seed stitch panel and color-coded their charts. I don’t have a variety of colored stitch markers, so I made up a quick color-coded Excel chart for the first four rows so I could see how the different panels were meant to come together. Also, the Vivian Knit-Along group on Ravelry, moderated by Ysolda herself, is super helpful both in terms of confusion in the pattern and in support from other members.
Kitchenering the hood in pattern is also tricky. I couldn’t find a good tutorial online so I went to my trusty copy of Knitter’s Handbook by Montse Stanley, where she has detailed pictures of kitchenering in just about every pattern you can think of. I was feeling too lazy to figure out seed stitch grafting so I just worked a reverse stockinette graft in the seed stitch panels and I think it looks fine.
There is one small error in the pattern: in Row 80 of the left and right front cables (LFC/RFC), a 2-over-1 twist (knit the cable stitches, purl the background stitch) has been shown as a 2-over-1 cable (knit all the stitches involved), an easy fix. And how is it even possible that a pattern with such complexity has only one error? It is a testament to Ysolda’s pattern-writing prowess and Twist Collective’s superb editing. I would not hesitate to knit another pattern from either of them.
The Yarn: This was my first time working with Cascasde Eco Wool, which is a heavy worsted 100% wool. It has 478 yards per skein so at only $15 a skein, it’s an absolute steal. I think it feels itchy and irritating in the skein, but it softens up considerably just knitting with it and even more after a wash. As I’ve said before, I’m pretty sensitive to itchy wool sweaters (though I’m no Mo Rocca (but speaking of that, I adore Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me with every fiber of my being, and I consider being mocked on that show an honor)), but I can comfortably wear this sweater all day. Right now I’m wearing it over a sleeveless top and I can barely even feel it. So I’d say to the itch-wary, give Eco Wool a shot. I didn’t have a single knot or splice in any of my three skeins and my whole sweater cost less than $40. I know you can get a good deal with KnitPicks Wool of the Andes or some other discount yarn, but in my experience, the Eco Wool is much better quality and infinitely less itchy than WOTA, which makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.
Modifications: Obviously I swapped the zipper for a seed stitch buttonband and sewed on 6 coconut buttons. I hemmed and hawed about what kind of buttonband to knit, but I’m glad I went with the seed stitch; it ties the sweater together well. For anyone curious about how I did it, I followed Sarla’s modification to the body and dropped the 3 slipped edge stitches and one of the purl stitches at the beginning of each row (on each side) and replaced them with two knit-stitches (on the RS). After blocking the sweater, I picked up stitches along tho whole length of the inside edge. I didn’t count my stitches but picked up according to my gauge, picking up roughly 16 stitches for every 26 rows on the body.
I worked 6 1-row buttonholes (from Montse Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook) on Row 4 of the seed stitch as follows:
- Work to buttonhole position;
- Slip one stitch purl-wise with yarn in front;
- Put yarn in back and leave it there;
- *Slip one stitch purl-wise, pass previous stitch over it*, Rep for desired number of buttonhole stitches (I used 3 stitches for 3/4 inch buttons);
- Slip last stitch back onto left needle and turn work;
- Put yarn in back;
- Use cable cast-on to cast-on the number of bound off stitches;
- Cast on one extra stitch but bring yarn to front before placing it on needle, turn work;
- Slip one stitch knit-wise and pass extra cast-on stitch over it.
This creates very neat, clean button-hole edges that don’t have a lot of give and stretch. I knit my buttonband for a total of 7 rows in seed stitch and then bound off in pattern.
I wanted a little more depth in the hood so I added roughly 12 rows working in pattern before beginning the decreases. I also changed the hood decreases to mimic those in the waist shaping because I wanted to maintain the cables that border the seed stitch pattern. My finished sweater is about 34″ at the bust, which is roughly 0.75-1″ negative ease. The give in the cable pattern seemed to help keep it from gaping awkwardly at the buttons.
Overall impressions: The finished product is cozy and warm, so comfortable that I never want to take it off. It’s a perfect sweater for these Seattle spring days when you never know if you’re going to get snow or 50-degree sunshine.
Up next: Something quick! More on that to come. Not sure if anyone made it this far, but thanks for reading!
*About the ease…I feel like the question how much ease to incorporate into a garment is one of the most challenging questions for beginner sweater-knitters. An inch of negative or positive ease completely changes the fit of a sweater. Therefore, I will do my best this year to measure my final sweaters and include information about ease, in hopes that it will help people make good fit decisions. There’s little more tragic in a knitter’s experience than knitting a beautiful, time-consuming sweater that looks like a sausage casing or a potato sack.
