The Sweater of Many Random Stripes

Ooh, I’ve had fun with this one!

Having done a couple of top-down, seamless yoke jumpers and been thrilled with the results, I was in danger of creating an entire wardrobe of very similar jumpers for myself – I tend to knit for myself until I have mastered it, at which point I feel more comfortable about giving things away or selling them.

So I embarked on a bottom-up jumper instead.

I used Drops Andes in a beige and a brown. It is the same as I used for this jumper, which until now was my stand-out favourite. And, clearly, I massively over-ordered on the yarn (*blush* “Hello, my name’s Alice. I am a yarn-addict”) I believe this jumper took around 6 x 100g balls.

Drops Andes  100 sts on 8mm circular needles. Random stripes begun
Drops Andes
100 sts on 8mm circular needles.
Random stripes begun

I cast on 100 stitches to an 8mm circular needle and knitted stripes willy-nilly until I reached a length long enough to reach my armpit from mid-hip. I purposely didn’t knit rib around the bottom as I had a vague notion to crochet a border around the bottom and cuffs.

Body almost done
Body almost done

I then embarked on the sleeves: 26sts on double pointed needles, increasing gradually to 34 by the time I reached the armpit. For example, I made a stitch at rows 11 and 13, then a couple more at around elbow level, and four more gradually on the way up to the top. I kept a note of where I increased so that I could recreate it for the second sleeve. I made the sleeve around 14 rows longer than the jumper body: I have long arms and hate when my wrists are bare in the winter!

Sleeve underway
Sleeve underway
Body and sleeve
Body and sleeve
One sleeve complete. The second started.
One sleeve complete. The second started.

I then put 6 sts at each side of the jumper body onto waste yarn, and 6 stitches of each sleeve onto waste yarn, too. They will be knitted together using the 3 needle bind-off at the end.

Then comes knitting across the body to the waste yarn, (place a marker), knitting the live stitches from the first sleeve onto the circular needle up to the sleeve’s waste yarn, (place a marker) knitting across the back of the jumper and repeating with the second sleeve. At the end of the second sleeve, you have your new row beginning.

All on one needle.
All on one needle.

I then knitted two rows before beginning the raglan decreases which, when you have the hang of them, are really quite simple. Two things to remember: Every other row is just a knit around, and use markers!

Every decrease row involves slipping the two stitches before the marker onto the right needle and knitting through them with the left needle. Then, after the marker, knit two together. So much easier in practice than it sounds!!

The raglan sleeves!
The raglan sleeves!

Then, basically, knit till you have the size neck you require. You can stop decreasing and switch to rib for a big chunky roll neck, or end up with something more boat-neck like mine.

Once finished, and all ends woven in, I crocheted three rows around the bottom, using a *single crochet, chain 1* pattern, crocheting into the spaces on subsequent rounds, and just a single row of the same around the cuffs. And ta-dah! No curling!!

The finished article!
The finished article!

I haven’t taken it off yet:

Taken by my son
Taken by my son
Tricky mirror 'selfie'
Tricky mirror ‘selfie’

I must now attend to my severely neglected works in progress children 😉

These two, amongst others, are still on the needles:

Cotton fair-isle for spring / summer
Cotton fair-isle for spring / summer
Wool / alpaca tank top.
Wool / alpaca tank top.

Until the next time.

And if anybody fancies attempting the jumper, and I can help at all, please shout! ❤

Advertisement

4 thoughts on “The Sweater of Many Random Stripes

Add yours

  1. It’s so lovely, Alice! And it sounds so easy when you describe the construction! Why haven’t I cast on yet? Oh, yes, still unpacking the kitchen. ☺️ I’ll continue to live vicariously through your knitting for now. 😊

    1. I’m so looking forward to more of your creations! One thing I really love about the ‘woolly community’ 😉 is the amount we all pick up from each other. And, of course, the truly lovely encouragement.
      Thank you, Laura, as always 😊

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑

%d bloggers like this: