Months after finishing it, I’ve finally made time to sit down and write about my first jumper I knitted last Spring. I bought the wool for this project in December and started knitting it mid-January but did not finish it until early March. I’ve forgotten about all the ins and outs of making this piece but it’s all coming back to me as I start to write. I put so many hours into it, it felt like my knitting baby; from its conception in December as the first knitting pattern and wool I had bought through its long gestation until March. While this project was on the go, I was also knitting my Bonnie Cardigan. Dividing my time between the two projects is one reason for this jumper’s slow progress. The main reason for my plodding pace, though, was the difficulty with the pattern instructions which I will explain later. If I were to do it again (having learnt from mistakes) I think it would take me much less time, as chunky wool knits up quickly and when I was actually knitting my jumper grew quickly.
After getting into knitting this past year, I really wanted to make myself a big, cosy, slouchy jumper. Something that enveloped me like a warm cloud. I fell in love with chunky wool- so soft and squishy- and I adored the chunky knitwear I was seeing on instagram. I found out about Wool and the Gang from an instagram account and fawned over the beautiful colours of their Crazy Sexy Wool and my mind was made up.
To read more about what I think of Wool and the Gang and their background, take a look at my post on my Cardigan. [N.B, as of 2019 I became vegan and my stance on wool has changed. I will no longer be buying wool or supporting animal agriculture in any way]. Crazy Sexy Wool is gorgeous, no doubt about it. It is 100% pure Purvian wool. The colours are vibrant and they come in many lovely shades. I perused the yarns’ page nearly daily trying to decide which were my favourites and how many different colours I could get away with using for this jumper. I had to make it stripy because there were too many amazing colours!
Little did I know what a journey it would be, I definitely jumped in at the deep end, but I think you have to be fearless (naively or not) or you’d never do challenging projects.
The pattern: Brogan by Rowan
I searched for a long time online for chunky knitwear patterns and found it so much harder to come across knitting patterns with a modern edge, unlike the Indie sewing world which abounds with choice. Most were too frumpy, too traditional; I wanted something simple. I came across a magazine by Rowan’s called Big Wool Knits and this included a jumper called Brogan that was pretty much ideal. You can buy the jumper pattern on its own for £4, but the magazine is only £12 and it comes with a variety of different patterns that I thought would be useful to have in my arsenal as a beginner.
The pattern stipulates 9mm (for the ribbing) and 10mm knitting needles and 1 9mm x 60cm circular needle for knitting in the round. I actually used the circular needle throughout which was very helpful; the jumper was very wide and became so heavy I needed the space and the weight off my needles as I knitted. I bought my circular needle from Minerva Crafts, they had the best range of sizes for the best value of money, and also wooden ones which I prefer. I love the way wood warms to your hands and it just feels good in your grasp. I bought the ‘Knit Pro Basix Birch Wood Fixed Circular Knitting Needles’; 10mm x 60cm for £5.99. I only ordered the 10mm one though, deciding to do the ribbing using 10mm instead of buying another especially for it.
Everything about the knitting pattern I found much more challenging than sewing patterns. It was impossible to know what size to make; they did not tell you what size the model was wearing and what size she is, and they only included one photo, the one of her sitting down. This meant you couldn’t see how long the jumper was and get a real gauge for the fit! I wanted an oversized jumper… but if it was already an oversized style should I choose the XS and not the M which would give me an oversized look if it was not deliberately bigger? I chose to make a medium based on their measurements.
They gave their suggestion of amount of wool based on their specific ‘Rowan’s chunky wool’; 9 balls for my size. The same number of balls encompasses several sizes; so XS-M requires 9 balls, L-XL 10 balls and XXL 11 balls. I therefore didn’t feel particularly worried or tied down about ordering for sizes XS-M as I could still make a choice of size. I looked up the suggested Rowans wool and it looked very similar to WATG’s chunky ‘equivalent’, Crazy Sexy Wool, despite Rowan giving very little information about theirs.
A ball of yarn from Rowan’s weighed 100g and WATG’s was 200g, so I decided to go by weight and ordered half as much -ish. I started by ordering 5, thinking I could always order more if I needed. Oh boy could I…
The process
In the end I ordered 9, NINE! I just kept on needing to order more and more and more… There isn’t a particularly clear way to document the making of because it was by nature not striaghtforward, so forgive me if my explanation reflects this in its form.
The plan was to knit a tricolour thick stripe. The three colours I painstakingly decided on (thinking these would be the final colours) were Mustard Sally, Rocky Grey and Rusty Orange. Bronzed Olive (I don’t even have to look up the name to remember) was also a favourite, I may have to return to that one next Winter…
They arrived at the beginning of December. Rusty Orange turned out to be Very Bright Orange, not the terracotta dream I was hoping for and that it looked like online. I didn’t like it and it didn’t go with the other colours, so I exchanged it and chose another, darker grey; Tweed Grey.
Ball count: 4
I chose to do the ribbing on the body and sleeves in this dark grey and redraft my stripes: 3 other colours making up the body of the garment in thick stripes, with the sleeves also stripy, corresponding to the body. I would still be keeping my tricolour; two shades of grey, mustard yellow and another.
We’re now at the end of December. I needed to order another colour (yay) and picked out Mellow Mauve to complement the other two which has turned out to be my favourite of all the colours I chose. I only bought one ball, as the yarn had become full price again and so I decided I would carry on knitting and order more later in another sale. I had more Rocky Grey (2 balls as opposed to 1) than the other colours so I decided on knitting four stripes with an extra grey stripe separating the mauve and yellow, as I felt it helped them look more harmonious.
Ball count: 5
11th Jan and I began to actually knit. As I went through my first stripe (Mustard Sally), knowing I needed to duplicate everything for the back piece, it soon became clear I had not ordered enough- I had used over half one ball of wool on one stripe. I did a lot of knitting in a day and can remember now weighing the wool and the worrying realisation dawned on me how much more wool I’d need, only just having started! The next day I ordered another mustard and another mauve, luckily reduced.
Ball count : 7
21st Jan. 10 days later I had knitted nearly all of the front and back, both up to the points of shaping at the armholes. I held it up to myself and thought: my god- it’s already so long and it doesn't have the however many cm were left on top for shaping.. (which was quite a lot). Excruciatingly, but telling myself I wouldn’t wear it if it didn’t fit, I unraveled all of the front and back and started again from the ribbing, making my stripes ‘thinner’. This modification was the right thing to do, and later on I did need the extra yellow and mauve I unwound to use for the sleeves (I actually only had small amounts of these colours leftover in the end). I realised I would need another Tweed Grey if I was going to be able to knit my cuffs and neck ribbing, as well as needing more Rocky to get me through the shaping at the top Front and Back. Luckily they were still reduced, this was my fourth and final order.
Ball count: 9
I re-knitted Front and Back up to the point of shaping the armholes again but I was so confused by the instructions. It was the way the pattern expressed how to do the decreasing and increasing. I say expressed, because it was not explained. Like with sewing patterns, the instructions are condensed and concise, but this was taking the biscuit. The sentence was written in a way that could be interpreted in two ways, a nuance that could have been cleared up with more words. I think if I were experienced I’d have known what they meant, but as a beginner you aren’t able to make educated assumptions.
I had already done some decreasing; casted off 3 stitches on two rows then decreased by 1 stitch at the end of the following 2 rows:
Cast off 3 stitches at beginning of next 2 rows (50 stitches). Decrease 1 stitch at each end of next 2 rows. (46 stitches).
Firstly, I was confused about the meaning of ‘each end’ of the row: Decrease 1 stitch at each end of next 2 rows. They had said ‘beginning’ in the previous instruction so I had conceived of the row as having a beginning and an end, instead of two ends. And I assumed that they would stick to this terminology to make it clear whether you are are decreasing twice in one row or once at the end of two rows. I knitted it using my interpretation first, and realised it was wrong and re-did it. I suppose ‘each’ was supposed to clear this up, but when you have multiple rows and multiples ‘ends’ of rows, 'each' could refer to either.
The next instruction;
Decrease 1 stitch at each end of next and following alternate row. (42 stitches). Continue working straight until armhole measures 25 cm, ending after wrong side row.
Next and following alternate?! What is following alternate? Did this mean I decrease 1 at the end of my next row, then don’t decrease on the next, then decrease 1 on the following row? i.e alternate decreasing. Or, does it mean decrease, decrease (the following), no decrease (the alternating starts), decrease no decrease etc. It sounded like it should be the latter but that seemed odd. I googled this terminology to no avail.
I decided to go along to a local knitting group in January for help. This was a lovely experience. I was nervous about it at first but I'm very glad I went, and it’s a shame I couldn’t keep going as I got a full time job in February and it was held on weekday afternoons. I got to meet some very experienced knitters and it felt refreshing being able to share my hobby with other people; usually sewing and knitting are solitary activities for me. I loved being able to ask for help as I knitted- so much easier and more helpful than youtube tutorials that aren’t tailored to your exact situation and pattern terminology.
The group helped me along my way marvellously but I still had some of my jumper to finish after I stopped going and my progress slowed down as I had much less time to spend knitting. I would take smaller projects like scarves on my train commute to work but the jumper was far too big to do this!
I was not entirely sure about the pattern of stripes I was going to create on my sleeves. Initially I thought of repeating the same four stripes to match the body, but the sleeves are much shorter than the body so this was not going to be possible. The main constraint was the amount of wool I had left; I did not have enough wool for each sleeve to have yellow, mauve and rocky grey. Because I wanted to keep the 'thick stripe' look, instead of fitting four stripes into a smaller space, I opted for asymmetrical but balanced sleeves; mauve on one and mustard on the other. However, I didn't have enough to do the whole sleeve in each colour so used Rocky Grey to top up the end, this also meant it blended in nicely with my top stripe.
I was careful to keep checking the length of my sleeves after the fiasco with my Bonnie Cardigan. I held up the jumper to my body and placed the sleeves up to the armhole so I could see how far down my arm they would reach when attached (now being fully aware of sneaky dropped seams...). It was hard to know how long I wanted them, I usually like a slightly cropped sleeve but as this is a winter jumper, I went longer for that much needed wrist warmth.
When I reached the neck ribbing I needed more help; so I enlisted the wisdom of my boyfriend’s mother who is a seasoned knitter. I wasn’t sure how to pick up the neckline stitches and knit in the round, as I had never done this before, but she showed me what to do and I finished my jumper soon after.
Making up the jumper took quite a while; I wanted to make sure it looked neat and was well secured together so that the jumper lasts. They didn't have any instructions about how to make it up so I drew from Sewing to do this. I sewed up the front and back together first; at the side seams and the shoulders. I tried to use up all my stray bits of yarn and chopped and changed to match the stripe I was sewing through to minimise any stitches showing. It was satisfying seeing my stripes on the front and back matching up and really exciting seeing it become three dimensional. I then did set-in sleeves; sewed each sleeve up separately and inserted them: I turned the body inside out so that the right side was on the inside, and with the right side of the sleeve on the outside (i.e right sides together), I put it inside the body and matched up the opening to the armscye, matching side seam to sleeve seam. I find the shoulder and sleeve seams a bit bulky which is a shame and I'm not sure how to reduce this problem yet. I tried to flatten them out a bit with my fingers, feeling the frustration of not being able to take an iron to them, but it hasn't done much.
Once it was constructed, I carried on knitting the turtleneck past the specified measurement to as long as I wanted it. I wanted to be able to roll it over properly. I kept trying the jumper on and testing the neck. It's a little hard to make it completely double over itself, especially at the back (as you can see above), but I stopped when I thought it was bulky enough.
Reflections
Part of the reason why I needed so much wool was because I chose to do stripes; because my stripes were a certain width I had to change and use a new ball which meant I was left with bitty bits of wool. I think I would have used quite a lot less if I had chosen unicolour.
My jumper is quite a bit bigger than I thought it was going to be; it is longer and wider and as a result is very heavy- approx 1.8 kilos of Peruvian wool! The jumper on the Rowan’s model looks slouchier and softer and I think the wool isn’t as chunky as mine. Although this jumper turned out to be different in appearance to what I was hoping to make, it did not fail in respect to the properties I was looking for: big, cosy, slouchy (maybe not quite), able to envelop me like a warm cloud. Also, I don’t care that it wasn’t what I had in mind, because it grew into being its own, unique thing which is what makes knitting so creative.
The wool is so soft and felt like a dream to knit with, it gives a fairly stiff appearance and I am not sure if this is inherent in the wool or the way I knitted it. I have to admit, I am still confused; is the jumper so big because I was loose with my knitting and therefore made it bigger or because I used so much wool it just had to be bigger? The pattern gave measurements and number of rows to follow and I adhered to these. I don’t feel that I am a particularly 'loose' knitter, the jumper is very dense which makes it ‘stiff’ and this suggests I was fairly tight with my stitches. I feel like I crammed an awful lot of wool into a relatively small space.
I love knitting, but I don’t like gauge. I just can’t seem to get it right and however hard I try to knit looser it doesn’t seem to have any effect. After knitting this and my cardigan, which both turned out bigger, I then went on to knit a Mohair jumper (post to follow…) which was much SMALLER than I was anticipating. And I thought I had really done well with knitting loosely! It’s so frustrating using the right sized wool and needles but not getting the right sized garment. I know I have a lot to learn about this, but coming from a sewing background where you cut your fabric for your size and it stays that way, (plus any extra adjustments for it to fit your body), I feel like I have so much more control over my size when sewing compared to knitting.
I haven’t actually had a lot of wear out of it yet as temperatures in the UK were starting to thaw in March. We had a particularly cold early 2018, including unusually late snow at the end of February to early March. All the while I was smugly knitting my jumper thinking I had the perfect cold weather defence, but by the time I had finished a few weeks later it wasn’t yeti jumper weather anymore.
I wore it on my birthday and a couple of other times, but since then it has been safely tucked away in a plastic ziplock bag in my cupboard- there is no way I am letting moths near it. Sometimes I take it out just to look at it and admire the wool and remember the enjoyment of making it and that I actually managed to make and finish a jumper!
All in all, I am really glad I spent the time, energy and money knitting this jumper. And I spent a lot of money... £99.20 to buy the 9 balls of wool. I only bought one at full price (£16) so I saved £44.80 buying them on sale at their varying prices. WATG never gave as good as 50% off, if only… but it all helped. This is a lot of money, and I would never have bought a ready to wear jumper for this much, but I wasn’t just making it for the final product. What it comes down to is that you can’t put a number on enjoyment of a craft, being creative and learning new skills, and importantly, I am happy to pay that much if it means supporting a company who are taking steps to be more sustainable, environmentally friendly and ethical.
I have since given knitting a rest as it isn’t cheap but I’m looking forward to doing some more again this winter. I think I might try buying one of WATG’s kits when they are on sale because at least that way it will be a pattern tailor-made for the particular yarn and I will be given exactly right amount of it! They have some great looking projects and a lot to choose from, I will be in for a treat.
Skills used:
Stocking stitch
Ribbing
Knitting in the round
Increasing and decreasing stitches
Patience
Wool:
Crazy Sexy Wool by Wool and the Gang in:
Rocky Grey x3 Tweed Grey x2 Mustard Sally x2 Mellow Mauve x2
Pattern:
Brogan, in Rowan's Big Wool Knits.
Sizing according to pattern:
XS.............................9 balls
S...............................9 balls
M...............................9 balls
L................................10 balls
XL..............................10 balls
XXL...........................11 balls
Needles:
I used 10mm circular birch needle (60cm).
Stitch holders, lots of them.
(Pattern stipulates: 9mm and 10mm knitting needles. 9mm x 60cm circular needle).
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