A series of unfortunate jumpers...

Heh. I have no luck when it comes to making jumpers for my sweetie.

I made him a bottle green jumper ages back. That actually turned out ok, but I think there was a mistake in the instructions, because it advised you to use holding position for the back shoulder shaping in such a way as to make it finish up diagonal? Which would be fine except that the front shoulders were shaped as you would normally. Think it might have been a typo. Weird!

I made him a lovely navy lambswool sweater with sky blue cuffs. It was actually a nice jumper, until somebody who shall remain nameless tumble-dried it.

Making the second version I ran out of the navy yarn so one of the arms has a slightly different coloured shoulder. I managed to shrink that one I think, by over-spinning it in the washing machine.

I made him a cardigan out of dark green acrylic. “Make it really long”, he said. “I want it to cover my bottom”, he said (dunno why, he has a lovely bottom!). It used up so much yarn I had to make the cuffs and collar in another colour. I couldn’t get a zip long enough for it (without contacting a camping store, haha!). Took many attempts to set the zip in, and it was a good 6” too short at the neck, anyway. Needless to say he never wore it and it went into the bin.

Fast forward to today - finally finished a jumper made in a brown tweed 2x2 rib. Yeah, it’s kinda figure-hugging (I did warn him it would be). One sleeve is about 6” too long. One sleeve is about 9” too long. The front and the back are a different length, for some reason, so when I sewed it up, the shoulder seam is actually 3-4” down his front. Ahem. I know I could cut the sleeves and make them shorter, but I’m really not sure I want to! It looks terrible!

Maybe I should just stick to baby clothes. I’m getting quite tired of his pained expression - “I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I’m never going to wear this monstrosity!”.

Yes, I did swatch, and yes, I used Knitware. Yep, I can screw it up with the help of a computer! I suspect 2x2 is just too stretchy to calculate an accurate swatch….

Oh well. I’m taking the Brother ribber to KnitCamp next week along with two Bro machines, so the whole machine is being put away, I have another lambswool jumper to make on the SK840, swatched and ready. Maybe this will be the one that fits and doesn’t get shrunk?! :)