mama urchin

You may remember the problem with Katrina’s Christmas sweater but if you don’t the gist is that I ended up with one front that was 10 rows too long and was debating what to do to shorten it. After the encouragement from you guys that I was on the right track I bravely cut the front, unraveled the extra rows, and kitchener stitched the two pieces back together. I have used kitchener stitch on lots of socks but I didn’t know for sure if I could graft together the bottom of one set of stitches and the top of another – you knitters will know what I mean — but the answer is you can. I also had to do a garter stitch kitchener for the first time but that worked out fine too — Knitty has an excellent tutorial.

Of course the whole thing was sidelined by me getting sick just before Christmas so the Christmas sweater became a New Year’s sweater and my sweet daughter said it’s okay Mommy. I started knitting this not knowing how the size would be in the end and it turned out to be perfect. The yarn was odds and ends of some yarn that had been in my stash forever — the red was leftover from my very first attempt to knit. I only bought the navy to finish it up. We went on a walk around the block and Katrina reported she was warm enough so I think this will be used as a jacket a lot of the time — especially since she doesn’t have a jacket at the moment. Details are below.

Tomten
Pattern: Tomten by Elizabeth Zimmerman, from Knitting Without Tears
Yarn: Cestari Wool 2-ply
Yardage: I don’t really know because I used up the ends of skeins I had but the sweater weighs exactly one pound so it probably took just over four 210 yard skeins
Needles: US size 7
Gauge: 3.5 st/in
Modifications: After the split for the arm holes I knit 5 fewer ridges before I rejoined the pieces — this was an accident that thankfully worked out alright. I made the sleeves 58 ridges instead of the 56 called for in the pattern. I knit a 6 row border around the front of the sweater.