Homemade Friday: Gathered Pullover from Interweave Knits Winter 2007

I’m a bit late with this one, mainly because I’m suffering from another COLD OF DEATH or something like that.  I told my husband last night that I blamed the Paleo diet and he thought I was ridiculous until I told him that it was because as soon as I stopped eating mostly Paleo because of sheer laziness and exhaustion and dear lord I’m tired of so much cooking, that I received a wicked cold.  And then that went away.  And then a week later I received a wicked sinus infection. 

So anyway, today during naptime, instead of fight get her to at least stay in her room, I decided to just let her lay down in my bed with me.  I think I slept.  She was still until she got super bored and then started tapping me on the shoulder then giving me kisses and hugs to make me wake up.  And then we went upstairs to her room and had a tea party in her tent because that is for some reason the only place she wants to have a tea party.  

This is not a picture from today, but you get the idea. Tree tent tea party!

So I’m just now sitting down to write my Homemade Friday post.  Every time I sit at the computer Adele decides to fix my hair, which involves de-tangler and a brush and her attempting to put a pony-tail holder in my hair.  Today she got smart and used barrettes.  I’m writing this with quite a few pieces of hair paraphernalia on my head.  Just in case you were attempting to picture me as you read this.

On to the sweater!

(Finally!)  

(I KNOW!)

The pattern is the Gathered Pullover from Interweave KnitsWinter 2007 issue.  And I think that might have been around the time I knit it.  I have no actual memory of the year.  Because I am old, obviously.  But I never wore it much because for some reason I knit it entirely too short.  I’m a bit curvy anyway, and any shirt that doesn’t fall low enough on my hips rolls up toward my chest.  So really, add that to the muffin top and it wasn’t a pretty sight.  I pulled it out this year and wore it once on account of the whole POLAR VORTEX and ridiculously cold temperatures.  I never left the house so it wasn’t that big of a deal that I looked ridiculous.  But I still vowed that this was the year I was going to fix it.  

I still had quite a bit of the yarn left.  I’d bought a couple of cones of the yarn called for in the pattern, which was Brown Sheep Top of the Lamb Single Ply Sport in, uh, brown.  Some brown color.  I’m not even sure where I ordered it from, but I know it was online.  I can’t seem to find the giant cones I bought anymore, so maybe they don’t make them?

I’d used a sewn him instead of the rolled hem in the pattern, mainly to deter the sweater from rolling up.  Didn’t work.  I spent some time one night un-sewing the sewn hem.   I tried to unravel and be careful about all of it but then it became a giant pain in the butt so I brought out the scissors.  I started knitting the new, longer body with size 6 needles because my gauge is always off so I’ll go down in needles to fix it.  I didn’t realize until after I’d done an inch or so that those needles were not the right size.  So I ripped back again and used size 7 needles, which were the correct ones.  (Take notes, kids.  It helps.)

 

I actually knit an extra six inches or so to make it a comfortable sweater for me.  You may be able to see the line of new knitting from the photos.  I can still see it, but I think it’s faint enough not to be an issue.  Eventually it will all look the same.

  

You may not be able to tell anything from the photos because my camera has been dropped one too many times and now refuses to take pictures.  Good times.  So all of these photos were taken with my phone.  And a 3-year-old 'assistant.'  You are welcome.  You can't see it all that well, but I made that sweater she's wearing, too.  It used to be Sebastian's.  It's this one, actually:

I also didn't take a photo of the sweater before I fixed it because I forgot. 

I really like this sweater now that it’s fixed.  It’s fitted, but not too tight.  And I think the sleeves are the best set-in sleeves I’ve ever done.  Mine never look that good so I don’t know what caused these to be like they are.

This morning I decided that I don’t have enough warm things for Adele (because POLAR VORTEX) so I started socks and then realized that she would probably benefit more from mittens as she is not fond of the gloves I just bought her.  I’ve felt like crap so mainly all I’ve done is move from one spot to the next, wherever Adele tells me to go, knitting on the mittens while simultaneously playing duplos.  Or tea party.  Or watching Dinosaur Train.