Yarn provided by Berroco, KnitPal and Brown Sheep Co.
An avid fan of Christmas, I’ve always wanted to find the time to make an explicitly Christmasy sweater. Whether that was improvising something custom like from earlier this fall or simply making a sweater in reds and greens, I’d really been wanting to fill this “gap” in my handmade wardrobe. When it came time to pick out my knitting project for a late fall vacation, I couldn’t resist the Christmas sweater knitting urge any longer. Four DK weight skeins of red, green, grey and variegated pink/purple yarn jumped from my yarn stash and into my suitcase in the blink of an eye.
The Pattern: by Caitlin Hunter / The Yarn: Brown Sheep Co. in Hot Air Balloon (red) & Galaxy (grey), KnitPal DK in , & in Cupcake. All yarn was DK weight in my stash, mostly leftovers from my yarn review series.
Knit Start to Finish (Including Swatching & Wet Blocking) in 10 Days
Much like my yarn for this sweater jumping into my suitcase, this sweater practically knit itself, genuinely going from unwound yarn skeins to a finished sweater in a week-and-a-half. The night before we left for vacation, I speed-swatched my tush off and was able to knock out a gauge swatch. With that in hand, I was able to cast on at the airport and make some decent progress from day 1.
The other thing that helped me quickly knock out this sweater was the fact that it’s short sleeved and cropped, not requiring an entire (100g) skein of any of the colors of yarn I worked with. I made a point of working with an easy pattern and not straying too far from the listed instructions. As much as I love modifying patterns for fit, that is where you can really add hours to your knitting schedule thanks to math!
It’s still me, though, so I did make a modification for it. (As a pattern designer, I like to practice tailoring patterns to suit my body type to remind myself of how real life makers make, and this was a good opportunity to play!) The Soldotna’s finished circumference options at the bust are: 32.75 (36.5, 40, 44.5, 48, 52.5) {56, 59.75, 64, 67.75} ” or 83 (92.5, 101.5, 113, 122, 133.5) {142, 152, 162.5, 172} cm. I measure in at 37″, and the pattern is designed to fit with 1-4.5″ of positive ease, which would put me in a 38-41.5″ finished bust circumference range. I could wear either the second or third smallest sizes and my finished Soldotna would fit as designed.
It’s kind of funny – in real life, I almost never wear ready to wear clothes with lots of positive ease because they hit the widest part of my bust and hang straight down. I lose all of my shape, and tops tend to look rather tent-ish or like they came from the maternity section. With that personal hangup in mind, I added a little bit of shaping below the widest part of my bust. I decreased under the armpits, a total of four stitches every fourth row, which lines up with the pattern’s body chart for those who have purchased . I didn’t want the finished sweater to have no or negative ease (exactly fit or be an inch or two too small for a snug fit) because that would have gone against the style in which the Soldotna was designed.
With my tension and measurements in mind, I knew what to do. I had gauge perfectly, so I knit the sweater in a 40″ bust, a.k.a. size 3, so I was going into the shaping modification with 3″ of positive ease. My waist is 31″, so if I knit the Soldotna as written without shaping below the bust, I was looking at 9″ of positive ease at the waist, right where the finished sweater hem would land. Even trying on the sweater after finishing the yoke, I knew doing a touch of shaping would be best for my personal style. In the end, I did enough shaping to result in a 34″ waist decreasing from a 40″ circumference at the bust. It was a pretty easy modification to make and I’m so glad I did. Again, I don’t think most people would notice the shaping, and I’m happy with the finished knit.
Overall, the Soldotna is definitely layering friendly with all that positive ease, and I’ve found myself wearing it a lot just from a comfort perspective. It’s not a piece that I think I’ll be able to dress up, but there’s so much more space in my wardrobe for a layering-friendly sweater that I can wear into spring. In the end, I’m very happy with how this speedy make turned out! Happy Holidays!
Yarn provided by Berroco, KnitPal and Brown Sheep Co.
