While packing projects for vacation last summer I pulled this thrifted sweater out to unravel. But it felt so utterly buttery soft, so I tried it on…
The fit was decent – roomy but not too baggy – the color, definitely not my favorite, but better than pale pink or blue – but the neck, good god the neck – not quite a mock turtle, not quite a funnel; not quite ’60s mod-shaped, not quite ’90s – and it hit me right where I often feel easily choked (not to mention it didn’t really have shoulders and I do have them)…
So I decided to de-neck it instead.
It unraveled in four sections – front, back, and the two shoulders.
I kept trying it on until the mock was sufficiently dropped.
But the front still felt too high, so I unraveled just that section for several more rows.
And marked where I should pick up stitches to round it off.
(There’s probably a better way to do this, or I could have employed some steeks, but it was simple and worked for me.)
Then I then picked up and knit (with a few K2togs at the raglans) 1 x 1 ribbing for a few rows with US6 needles, then dropped down to US4 for the last three rows, finishing with a regular bind-off back on the US6s.
I bent back and sewed down the extra bit of triangle from the rounding off to the inside, and it is invisible from the right side – adds a slight bit of pleasant collarbone padding…
And now I have a comfy non-strangling sweater perfect to throw on over a t-shirt.
The wool has an almost cottony sheen and overall appearance, so it is a good stealthy wool sweater for the summer without looking too tweedily inappropriate for the season.
I opened up the side seams at the bottom to ease up the fit too…
But then realized the culprit of the too-cinched band was near cobwebs of elastic running through it – finding those and ripping them out took far longer than it should have, but the fit is now good.
(The nearly invisible elastic in on the left).
And the only issue with the sweater now is it’s a bit pilly. Or fuzzy with a low nap – hard to explain, but it’s got some whitish fuzz fungus coming out of it (seen on right) that isn’t too much of a bother since this is more of a cabins and campfires kind of sweater, but it’s odd that it’s coming out a bit of a different color since (at least according to the tag) the yarn isn’t a blend and doesn’t appear to be heathered…
I suppose another issue is the color – we’ll call it what, celery?
I rather hate celery…
But I’m afraid of loosing the butteryness and sheen, and slouchy but not too sloppy fit, if I dunk it in a dyebath, so I’ll wear it as-is for now…
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Update: I’ve been wearing this for a few weeks now, and the pilling is entirely out of control – it looks like I rolled around in sheep trimmings or got caught in a wind tunnel with cottonwoods and tent moths – it is very comfortable, but I’m glad I didn’t spend the time unraveling and re-knitting it only to find out that this yarn is an utter mess…
ASTITCHMATISM 