February 6, 2020

So when I asked a dear friend what I might knit for her daughter she said a „Pippi sweater“. Every Swede gets what it is meant by that, even though what Pippi wore is of course the classic Swedish Fisherman‘s sweater.

That could have meant going for this pattern. However, I on the one hand struggle with purling pains - not to mention lack of speed, especially when it comes to the stranded rows - and on the other avoid any constructions where the finishing is based on me having to put my underdeveloped sewing skills to use. So, I was relieved that my friend accepted this raglan version instead, named after Pippi‘s reasonable friend Annika, which is exactly what this choice was for me.

Though, in the meantime another seemingly brilliant design has been released, so if I ever were to make another Pippi style Sweater, I‘d use this pattern instead.

…

I want to say I did the knitted or cable cast-on, as I, in general, hate the long tail one these days, especially for big numbers - and don’t know why they taught it in school when the knitted one is even easier! I also wanted the collar to be stretchy enough, and my head gets through so I guess it is

I‘m still not sure if I‘m happy enough with how the collar seems to stand up like a turtle neck though but decided early on that if it still bothers me when I‘m done with the rest, I‘ll unpick the red edge and redo just that.

Modification? I can’t see why the first stripe after the neckband should be red, as in the pattern pic, but I guess the test knitter read the pattern chart from the bottom (as usual) whereas I decided to read it from the top instead, to get the colors alternated the way I wanted them.

March 15, 2020

I‘ve knit most of the bottom band, but moved on to the sleeves since I think I‘d like to finish off with a blue edge, but first need to see if I have enough yarn. My thinking is that it would both match the beginning and be practical …

The sleeves are now on a magic loop and am happy with doing both at the time!

March 25, 2020

The mother of the little Annika girl - as well as friends from my yarn group - voted for skipping blue edges to the waistband and cuffs, so I dropped that idea, even though it would represent perfect symmetry to my square mind The good thing about leaving it like that though, is that if they wanted to fold the cuffs up, like in the Drops pattern pic, one would have seen the less neat looking side of that last color change.

For the cast-off, I kept on knitting and purling in the established rib pattern and pulled the previous stitch over the last one. This is stretchy enough without the waistband flaring out.

So, now all that’s left is weaving in the ends, and deciding if the neck is ok as is or not.