In middle school, I had a black off-the-shoulder sweater with a wide fold-over collar and a coordinating skirt in gray and black stripe. It was the first skirt outfit I tried wearing over pants, a trend that has come back in popularity over the past few years along with the 2000s style. All of this has made me nostalgic for my old sweater, but not interested in buying one like it because I don’t love the new take on 2000s fashion with our current-day fabrics and fast fashion construction. It’s just all off-kilter from the original subject material.
So, I had an idea. What if I tried making one with the yarn in my stash? I had several skeins of this navy tweed from Big Twist that I didn’t buy with a specific purpose, and it took up space. It seemed like a fun color I could coordinate like I did with the Houndstooth Denim dress worn as a maxi skirt. It was an ambitious make.
I’ve only been making sweaters for a few years and had no experience designing a pattern with no collar or shoulder seams. There was a lot to think about. How could I incorporate the big fold-over collar? How do you add sleeves with the new style lines? How do you keep it on the shoulder enough so it doesn’t fall down? As with most of my makes, I dove head first into the project ready to fail if that meant I learned something!
The first obstacle I found was not having enough yarn, shocking right? I was surprised I had multiple skeins of this blue, but it wasn’t enough to get the longer length, so I had a choice to buy more or get creative in this stashbusting project? I decided using what I had was more important than keeping the original vision so I chose this gray yarn I also had in my stash from the Bunny Hat project. It brought an interesting contrast to the tweed and I actually loved the color blocking once it was done.
The arm holes were such a challenge. As I was knitting this piece top down, I first knit the ribbed collar and then reduced down for the body section, leaving enough of the collar on the edge to insert an armhole after I was done with both the front and then back. All was seamed together and for a first try, I’d say it was a success. The geometry definitely worked. I had a free range of motion. It was a win!
What was not a win was my over-calculation when it came to fit. I forgot to accommodate the size needle I was using, a US size 8, which knits up with a larger gauge. I had been using US size 7 more recently and I sized like I would have for this gauge. My second mistake was not accounting for the stretchiness of this yarn. It is an acrylic and nylon blend that gets roomy with wear leading to a sweater that simply didn’t fit.
After the move, several months after this project was done, I tried this on again and realized that I had toned up more than I thought carrying all those boxes because the sweater slips right off my shoulders and off my hips too. It’s a total size failure! Now I’m not sure what to do with it. I’ve already taken in the collar back in April, I don’t think I can take it in again and it is constructed well so frogging this project is not going to be easy. It’s a shame because I think I had a good design here.
I think my only option is to potentially re-home it and make another one following the tutorial that I shared on Instagram which was my first time doing that. I felt such imposter syndrome! To my surprise, it was met positively even though it was not created for circular needles. It showed me that sharing my craft and creating tutorials is becoming a calling, free tutorials, and free knitting and sewing tips because I just want people to do this too.
One Rabbit Riot 