As you may know from my last post (and my grumbling on Instagram) I haven’t had much time to sew over the last couple of months. I’ve theoretically had time in the evening but I’ve been too tired and sewing when tired means I make a complete mess of things. I have however managed to do a bit of knitting: this is the Chuck Sweater by Andi Satterlund:

The yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash in Provence (colour 1975) from Laughing Hens. It’s a really soft merino wool which I’ve used for my last two Miettes. The colour is a very Tomatoey Red, a bit darker than the picture shows.

I cast on a Large which is a 41 inch bust. There are three stitch patterns for the cabling, the outer two are easy but the centre needs a bit of attention. It started out really well, the back was knitted then put on hold, the shoulders were picked up and then the neckline cast on. I got to the point where the underarms are cast on and it gets joined in the round without making any mistakes…. Then I realised it was twisted at the shoulder and I’d twisted my stitches when I cast on the front neckline! There were tears, I threw it in the corner and swore a lot. I spent a day sulking but decided to get back on the horse and sort it out. I painfully ripped back all the cabling and started again at the neckline (making sure I didn’t twist it this time)

As is usually the case I made a few mistakes second time around and had to rip back a few rows but I eventually got to the bottom of it. I added one repeat of the first stitch pattern at the bottom to add a bit of length. I think it looks a little off balance though so if I knit it again I’ll have to have a rethink about how to add length. Although it took a few weeks to knit the body I managed to steam out both sleeves in five nights. I can never figure out why it takes so little time to knit a sleeve, anybody who sews will know that a sleeve is surprisingly big when laid flat, the time versus surface area continuum seems to be slightly skewed for some reason. I knitted the sleeves to the pattern, they are designed to be three quarter length but on me they were full.

I got a bit of a spurt on finishing as we were off to Anglesey for the week. Going by how great the British summer has been I was determined to be prepared and a sweater seemed far more practical than a new swimsuit. As it was the first three days were scorching hot (I burnt my knees knitting on the beach!) and although it did get a little overcast at times the rest of the week the rain mostly left us alone. Here’s some location shots, the not so little one acted as photographer but I could only get him to take a few before he went off rambling over the rocks.

I really love the finished sweater and with Autumn just around the corner (or rather knocking on the door) I know it’ll get a lot of wear.