Never ever, ever again am I knitting for other people…all i seemed to do in 2023.

I can’t say I’ve enjoyed this project. It was a good basic sweater but John who chose it isn’t the type for oversized sweaters, no cuffs, floppy necks so it’s been a learning curve doing various mods to make it work for him.

And doing the zip….aargh….I was glad to see the back of it today. I tried the method shown by Staci but it just looked wrong. So I ended up sewing it in by hand using invisible thread. I love knitting but hate sewing. Anyway it’s done and never again.

Mods…
Knitted 5 inches for the collar and will fold in to make double thickness collar once zip in. This worked well as it gave body to the collar, hid the top part of the zip when slightly undone and looked more polished.

I added ribbing to both the cuffs and bottom. Use Suzanne Bryants tip when transitioning from stockinette to rib.

Also used her tip for closing holes under the armpits. It never fails to work.

For the sleeves I knitted 5 rounds after closing the underarm holes before my first dec (not 10 as in the pattern).

I also knitted 4 rounds and then a dec round on the 5th round so I could get down to 53 sts, k2tog and use the 52 sts for the rib. If I knitted as per pattern i couldn’t fit in the rib for the 18.5 inches i needed for the arms.
Did Icelandic bindoff for nice but stretchy finish.

On a plus note the yarn was beautiful to knit with and washed and blocked well. Bought from my favourite yarn shop Tangled Yarn. Very soft. Thank goodness for small mercies!