Lilysunshine

Baby is due in 10 days (eeeeek!) and all I feel like doing is knitting, and not even knitting for the wee lad. He’s got already too many clothes! Anyway, we are more or less ready: we’ve got all the furniture, clothes and stuff I think we will need, so there isn’t much to do on this front now. And I’m way too big to spend time cleaning the house. I just do the strict minimum.

So, what is left is knitting, with or without watching the telly. Over the last 10 days, I have made a small-ish hat, some fingerless gloves, a child-size cowl and I’ve finished a cardigan for myself. I have now started my biggest project ever in the shape of a sweater for the hubby.

The sweater is a big project, not only because of its size – my husband is still crossed that my huge belly (43in) is still smaller than is chest (46in)! – but also because I am not following any pattern at all. I am knitting it just like that.

Well, not just like that, since I’m writing the pattern before doing anything, then correcting what needs to be corrected. It’s a simple sweater with a herringbone cable pattern in the middle of the front (and maybe of the back too, I haven’t decided yet).

It’s the first time that I am starting something of this size (adult) without any base at all (for a garment): until now, I always had some sort of pattern written by somebody else that I used as inspiration. For this one, I don’t even have that, because I didn’t find anything close enough (I didn’t search a lot, though).

Maybe I should share my pattern? Would be good to write it down somewhere where there is little chance I can lose it, in case I want to redo it? So here it goes…

Big Boy’s herringbone sweater:
Size: to fit a 6ft 2in tall Kiwi, with a 46in chest at the widest part. Should be something between XL and XXL. I don’t know yet what length it will be, I will have to check with the hubby how long he wants it.
Yarn: the hubby chose his own yarn, which is Stylecraft Carousel (Double Knitting) in Aqua (very vivid dark green-blue), which has got a gauge of 20sts and 30 rows for a 4″ square, knitted on 4mm needles. It’s a sort of bouclé yarn, I guess. Not the nicest to knit with, but he likes it and it looks ok once knitted (no fluffy bits).
Needles: pair of 4mm knitting needles. I am actually knitting with my Knit Pro interchangeable circular needles (no squashing of the work this way) and my Novas are so slick, the yarn doesn’t stick to the needles.
Tension/Gauge: I actually did a gauge, swatch for this project since I needed to be sure of how it was going to knit. So I got 20 sts for 4″ (I didn’t bother with vertical gauge, as I’ve never found it relevant), knitted in St st using 4mm needles. I also got a 16sts for 3″ over the herringbone pattern. I will check those gauges once I am done with the project.
Pattern notes:

• 4×2 rib:
  • Row 1: k4, p2
  • Row 2: p4, k2
• Herringbone cable:
  • Row 1: C8B, C8F
  • Row 2: p16
  • Row 3, row 5, row 7: k16
  • Row 4, row 6, row 8: p16

That is the base of my pattern, I will write a bit more when I have made some progress. And post some pictures too. I would have done so today, but the weather and the light have been ghastly and not worthy of taking the camera out.

Tags: husband, knitting, pattern, sweater

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