The Too Little Lilla My

Lilla My sweater/shirt for the brother

So... this was what it was meant to be, for my brother (above).

Lilla My on the front

This is how it came out (above).

Now, my brother's about one full size larger than I am as far as clothing goes. So suffice it to say it doesn't fit him. The good news is that it came out pretty true to the illustration, at least! The slightly relaxed fit, the drop shoulder, the Lilla My... the size just came out completely wrong. About a full size wrong. What went wrong? I can only guess at a few possibilities.

1. I had two gauge swatches: the first was not quite tall enough, but used the chart, and the second was the bottom half of the shirt after I had ripped out the colourwork because my row gauge was wrong and I had to reknit it. I should have made two swatches: one with the chart, and one plain stockinette. Then I could probably have made more accurate calculations regarding how to make up for the difference. Measuring again using this finished shirt, here is the stitch gauge: 25 sts (stockinette) and 28 sts (over chart) = 4". That's a pretty big difference.
2. I put too much faith in the magic of blocking. It seemed to stretch out somewhat and relax into a good shape after the first block, so I didn't have my brother try it on or compare it against the tee he gave me as reference after that.
3. I tried it on in the last few stages and saw that it fit me, and assumed my brother being only one size larger should be ok with that too (and besides, it would stretch back out a bit after blocking, right?)

Weeeell... what can you do right?

I'm actually pretty miffed about the whole thing because this would have been the first thing I knit specially for my brother, but well... what can you do? I'm not about to rip the entire thing out (who knows if I'd ever finish it again after frogging the entire sweater?) and the sizing issue's a bit too much for me to just adjust it little by little, so. The shirt will have to be for me and/or my mom, since it fits us pretty well. And just in time, too! It's getting a bit chilly, but not outright cold just yet, so we'll be able to make good use of it, I'm sure.

And besides, this is sweater/shirt #2 completed for the Very Shannon Summer Sweater Knit Along 2017! Considering my progress in 2014, this is amazing.

Welp!

At least I've learned a few things from this project (in addition to getting a nice new shirt, though it's not really my style):

• Make proper gauge swatches! Especially if I'm going to be doing colourwork, because now I know that my tension goes horribly awry when I do that.
• Use smaller needles for the inside of the folded hems: I had to reknit the sleeve hems because (as you can see in the photos above) the folded hems are kind of popping out a bit. That's because I knit them using the same size needles. I went down to 2.5mm needles afterwards for the inside bit.
• The sweater curse runs true, even if it's only for your brother! (For further proof, see the unfinished Sherwood sweater, which I'm pretty sure is actually also too narrow for him.)

5-Year Old Sheep

I suppose the sheep are closer to 3 years old since I reknit them all in 2014?

I think I can call it a year now. This sheep sweater-turned-vest-turned-sweater has finally - finally - been finished! It's come a long way, and I just discovered the progress updates information on the ravelry project page, so I have a bit of a better idea when I did what... kind of:

• April 2012: CO and work on it sporadically until sometime in May
• 21 months pass
• March 2014: join in SSKAL14 in an attempt to motivate myself to work on it again - it didn't work.
• I ripped this out all the way until the ribbing, re-knit the sheep and basically got myself back to where I was before picking it back up again, I think?
• 4 months pass
• September 2014: unfortunately I didn't write any notes down as to what I did to it during this time, but I remember just knitting it straight up to the armholes and starting the armhole shaping
• I also started to knit a sleeve, because my original plan was to knit it all in one piece, connecting the sleeves and knitting the armhole shaping all at once.
• The sleeve was frogged for several reasons: it was way too roomy because of the sudden increases right after the ribbed cuff (part of original pattern that I ended up changing), but also because I was rethinking how I wanted to knit the sweater
• I think I also decided to make it into a vest around this time, so that probably gave me a good reason to just rip out that entire sleeve.
• 33 months pass - 33!
• July 2017: pick it back up again, just in time for the SSKAL17!
• Had to re-knit the ribbed neckline once because I just winged it and it was a bit of a tight fit.
• August 2017: finally done!

It's been a long time coming.

Longer armholes next time, maybe?

To tell the truth, I probably wouldn't be casting this on if I saw the pattern today. It might make it into my favourites, but I don't think I'd even have added it to my queue: I just wouldn't be able to see myself wearing it. So thank goodness I cast on before I started actually thinking about the practicality of casting something on! It's a pretty basic sweater, and I know the sheep aren't all that sheep-like, but it's cute, it's comfy, and I think it'll probably see some use once fall and winter roll around. It's actually the first stranded sweater I've ever knit, and what's even more amazing is that knowing that there was colourwork all throughout the entire thing didn't faze me a bit - me, who had yet to do any stranded knitting before; who didn't get gauge so had to recalculate the pattern (though this has never really fazed me so much as irritated me because it was extra work - though satisfying once everything came out just as it was supposed to!); and me, who didn't understand what magic blocking could generate (as evidenced by the pink sage). Though I'm pretty sure everything to do with knitting can't be that difficult, really, and that it's mostly a matter of practice and going for it, which has been my attitude since I started. And which is why I ended up knitting wight in a completely different gauge, and did the math to make a sage pretty early on. Knitting finally made me see the practical use of the math I had been learning all those years - truly, it did!

Loopy stitches possibility - neckline too wide to do this

Originally (by which I mean my Plan B after I decided I'd cut myself some slack and make it into a vest instead of a full-blown sweater), I was going to add a loop stitch funnel neck (as in the sketch above) to really bring out the sheep colourwork at the bottom hem, but the neckline ended up too wide and I really didn't want to rip it out and re-knit the neckline for both front & back again, so I ended up just doing a regular red ribbed collar. Because all the measurements for the finished garment were for a slightly drop-shoulder sweater, it ended up being too wide to change into a vest, so despite having ripped out an entire sleeve before some years ago, I went ahead and knit some sleeves to go with the body. Everything came full circle.

Impractical with shorts? Definitely!

This sweater has gone through so many revisions, starting as a sweater and then turning into a vest, then returning to the original sweater plan because the body was just too wide to be a vest; not to mention the frogging of everything except the ribbing at one point! It's been a solid 5 years since I cast on in April 2012 and I'm so glad it's done and out of my WIP pile! And now I've only got one more long outstanding WIP: the Sherwood sweater for my brother. I started that one in July of 2013, so I've got one full year more to just get on that before I break my record for this sheep vest. It will get done eventually, or so I tell my brother (who has  long since stopped asking about it). At least my completion of the sheep sweater should serve as proof of my word!