Fleece-to-sweater

My Humulus sweater is done – before I even had time to share any progress photos. Now that’s a satisfying sweater knit!

I swatched and cast this on back in early December, wanting to get it on the needles and settled in before our long road trip to Texas. This sweater is knit top down, and I wanted to get past the short row shaping around the neck opening before I was stick in the car. I got to the first few rounds of stranded work before we left.

Then, many hours of car knitting. I taped my pattern to the dash (washi tape is perfect) and went round and round. This photo was taken in the approximately one hour that it didn’t pour down rain in our first two days of driving.

I managed to get through the color work yoke and the sleeve divide just before we rolled into our first destination. This was perfect timing, as the main body of the sweater is not shaped at all. It is just a tube knit in the round, which is IDEAL for social knitting.

There was a little bit more short row shaping on the back of this sweater, just after the colorwork was completed. I’m not really sure why. I don’t think I’ve seen this before, and I don’t think it was needed on my body. Any insight on that? Here is the sweater from the back:

I’m not going to rip that back now (though I did extend the hemline after binding it off – it just didn’t feel quite roomy enough).

I had to reknit the first sleeve, too. I had a feeling that the decreases wouldn’t happen fast enough, so I decreased every 13 rounds instead of 14 – but I actually needed to decrease every 11 rounds before the cuff ribbing. That didn’t take too long to rework.

Part of the reason this sweater worked up quickly is that I made the smallest size. My body is not the smallest size (!), but my handspun was a little thicker than the specified yarn and I could not get the same gauge. So I fudged.

I was really pleased with the yoke and I also like how it fits. Now I am even more excited to take a workshop with Emily from Tin Can Knits on the ‘Strange Brew’ pattern when I am in Scotland in March. It is all about colorwork yokes and how to design your own!

The sweater did not turn out as light and lofty as I had envisioned – the final sweater weighs about 1 pound 4.5 ounces (that’s 580 grams for the metrical). I was very happy to wear it yesterday, though, when the high temperature was 35F. My yarn didn’t spin up as evenly as it usually does, and I blame my own fiber preparation for that. I think it really all starts with the washing of the fleece, and I’m not yet confident about my method. I had my first misgivings when I washed my swatches and noticed how cloudy the water was… still more lanolin was being released. When I washed the finished sweater before its final blocking, I used a bit of Unicorn Power Scout in the wash and Fibre Rinse in the rinse.

While I can see room for improvement, I am very pleased with this project and will proudly wear it to Scotland. I also need to think about what to do with the rest of my Muesli and Tamarind! I have a fair bit of brown yarn left (Tamarind’s 3-ply), but I used ALL the light gray Muesli. I still have more fiber from each fleece, though, that can be spun differently. That is thinking for another day.

Just for fun, here are some photos from the day Dave and I bought these fleeces in May 2018. Both are from Shepherd’s Hey Farm in Maryland.