Hello Internet friends!
Following on the heels of yet another amazing knit city here in Vancouver, today I’m sharing a knitting project that has been sitting in my closet since the spring! It’s my Weekender Sweater by Andrea Mowry that I whipped up this past March. You may have seen some peeks of it during #MeMadeMay of this year when I wore it during our trip to PEI (the pictures here are actually from that trip! look at that stunning red dirt!) Now that the weather has started to get cool it’s back in heavy rotation in my wardrobe!
I knit this sweater from a frogged project I started back in 2017, originally this yarn was destined to be a Shoji cardigan but about 1/2 through knitting that project I realized that I didn’t really want another cardigan and I didn’t really want a speckle-ly cardigan anymore. (Also, while the Shoji cardigan is a really interesting looking sweater, knitting is quite boring as you have to knit what amounts to a huge and heavy scarf first before all the interesting construction bits). What I really wanted was a comfy, ‘throw on and don’t have to think about it speckle-ly sweater’. Enter the weekender pattern! I knew when I spied this pattern that I would have to make a speckle-ly version of it. It’s just the kind of sweater that I needed in my wardrobe at the time. Something that I could just throw on with a pair of jeans (as seen here in my favorite pair of midrise ginger jeans!) and just be comfy. While the pattern calls for worsted weight yarn I took a gamble using this yarn (Madeline Tosh DK twist in the colourway optic) since after speaking to my Monday night knitting friends they suggested that since Madeline Tosh yarn weights tend to be slightly heavier than their suggested weight it would be worth making a test swatch to see how the fabric turned out and if I could get gauge. It was a good call as I easily got the correct gauge and the resulting knitted fabric looked amazing.
To say I love the final product is a bit of an understatement! I took it with me during my work trip to Chicago then on my vacation on the East coast of Canada and it was a great travel wardrobe work horse. It was super comfy to wear on all the flights, it’s nice and loose but the warmth from the wool means that you won’t get too hot or too cold depending on what the ambient flight temperature is. It was great to throw on when we were out exploring what the east coast has to offer as well as to pop on if it got chilly at night. I wore it so much that I was kind of sad to put it away for the summer!
The only modifications that I made to this pattern was to shorten the length by about an 1”. Initially I alternated skeins of yarn every 2 rows or to try and avoid pooling of of the black and grey tones of the yarn bit i was getting some tension issues carrying the yarn on the inside of the sweater since this sweater is knit in the round in reverse stockinette stitch. I eventually transitioned into just knitting one skein at a time and while there is some pooling I think it adds to the way the sweater looks so I’m not fussed by it. It actually looks kind of intentional as the majority of the pooling occurs near the top of the sweater giving a s sort of gradient effect. :)
I’m really glad that sweater weather is back and I can finally snuggle into this sweater again! Hope you are all enjoying the return of fall with warm drinks and warmer hand knits!
