Ladies Three-Quarter Sleeve Cardigan - The Beginning

The yarn has been calling to me for a year and a half. I finally had to start the project.

I inherited a stash of almost vintage yarn from a friend of my mom’s. There are plenty of yarns in the stash that were really nice and colors and weights that I want to make things (sweaters, hats, vests) with. There were a couple of yarns in the stash that I didn’t particularly like, but for some reason couldn’t get rid of them. Something about them made me want to hang on to them and use them together in a project. It’s the weirdest thing. 

I don’t really like the color of one of the yarns in this new project, but I liked it with the second color of yarn. I’m not sure they even go well when put together. But there you go, I couldn’t get rid of the yarn, so I had to come up with something that would use both yarns in a single project. 

Bernat Berella & Unger Utopia yarns.

I was clicking through our patterns one morning and came across this pattern, the 1950s Three Quarter Sleeve Cardigan Sweater - Knit pattern. The pattern called for mohair yarn, but I don’t enjoy working with mohair yarn…it’s almost impossible to rip out stitches when I mess up stitches.

1950s Three Quarter Sleeve Cardigan Sweater - Knit pattern PDF 0858

I started with a swatch to test the pattern. I hadn’t done a slip stitch pattern before and I couldn’t figure out how the stitches were going to work together to create the design. It turns out the pattern rows are easily memorized and even easier to knit.

Test swatch, using scrap yarn.

The yarns were perfect for the jacket. It’s pretty neat looking in-person. Using the darker yarn as the secondary color means that the color pops look more like shadows - they are subtle.

I have 4 skeins of the lighter/main color and 3 skeins of the darker/contrast color. I searched online and could not find any yardage information for the Bear Brand Curlicue or the Fleisher’s Curlette yarns. That isn’t too surprising. Back in the olden days, yardage wasn’t generally included on the label. The original yarns were worsted weight. Here's a link to theVintage Yarn Wikia page for info on yarn information we've run across over the years.

The pattern calls for 11 ounces of the main color and 6 ounces of the contrast color.  I have 14.10 ounces of the light and 10.5ounces of the dark yarns.  Here’s hoping I have enough to make the sweater.

Slip stitch pattern.

The project details:

• Yarn 1: Unger Utopia, Color: 171, 100% Courtelle Acrylic, 240 yards/skein.
• Yarn 2: Color: Bernat Berella, Color: 8815/Antq Rose, 100% Acrylic, 200+ yards/skein.
• Needles: 8 US. Chaiogoo Stainless Steel.
• Gauge: 5 sts = 1 inch (per the pattern).

I should have pics of the started project shortly. Fall baseball has started and we have some Saturday games where I will have to be knitting to calm my nerves.

Happy Knitting!

 

1940s Jiffy Raglan Sleeve Sweater - A Quick and Easy Knit

I thought I had posted pics of the 1940s Jiffy Raglan Sleeve Sweater Button Front (knit) a while back, but that was not the case. So, without further ado, are pics of the sweater.

We posted this pattern quite a while ago, and I had always been intrigued by the "Jiffy" part of the title. It turns out that this really was a quick knit. I know I have mentioned that I may be the world's slowest knitter. I am always hopeful that my knitting speed will increase, but it has not yet happened, so I was amazed at how fast I was able to knit this sweater.

I used some "vintage" Lion Brand Wool Ease that I had purchased years and years ago to make my husband a sweater vest. The yarn is a navy/light blue twist - an acrylic and wool blend.

The vest didn't happen because he thought I was a little nuts to be making him a sweater vest. So, the yarn sat in my stash, maturing like a fine wine, waiting for the perfect project to come along.

It can be difficult to find vintage patterns that use worsted weight yarn. That's why I like this pattern. Large yarn, easy directions.

The pic on the left is a close-up of the lacy, yarn-over stitch used for the majority of the sweater. 

I found the use of stitch markers invaluable when it came to working the yoke. The raglan increases were easier to see when I used the markers. The button band was crocheted on, and so much easier than I expected. 

In vintage terms this is a 16-18 sized pattern. I currently wear a medium or large in sweaters. That would put this sweater more in the 12-14 size range, depending on how aggressively you block the sweater.

Happy knitting!

It's Moving Pretty Quickly (for me) - Jiffy Knit Sweater

I just started working on a new project: the 1940s Jiffy Raglan Sleeve Sweater from our shop. I was really happy to find that I could use yarn already in my stash: a wool/acrylic blend. I purchased the yarn about 15 years ago, back when we still had a Ben Franklin craft store in town. I bought the yarn and started a sweater vest for my husband. I thought he would look cute. He thought I was nuts! So the partially completed vest has been in storage since then. I purchased so much yarn that I can probably make two of these sweaters.

The sweater is knit from the top down. Once you hit the bottom of the sweater, the vast majority of your work is already completed and your project is almost ready to wear. That seems pretty fantastic to me. In the first pic, I have the sweater waiting on my circular needle cable while I work on the sleeve.

I used a modified traveling loop that I first found a few year ago on YouTube to work the sleeves of the sweater. Liat Gat has fantastic knitting videos that are really well done. This is the video that I used to get me going on the sleeves. I might break down and buy a 16" circular needle if I make the sweater again. I think it might go faster if I didn't have to fiddle with the cable on every single round.

I will be posting my progress on the sweater. It should go fairly quickly since it is the Jiffy Raglan Sweater.

Happy knitting!