02-07-2016

Decided to knit this as a lightweight jumper perfect for the Scottish summer. I know that Rowan sometimes use colour filters and the main photos in the magazine have made the colours much paler than they are in real life. The photo on the pattern page and on the Rowan website is more realistic.

As much I as liked the two natural and soft pink colours I thought that the green (478 Jade) was much too bright for what I was looking for and jarred against the earthy tones of the other colours. Therefore I have substituted this for Granite which is a softer, darker green more in keeping with the other three colours. As I order virtually all of my yarn online my shade cards were a great help here as otherwise I may have stuck to the original colours.

Swatch before blocking was as per the pattern. After I had blocked the swatch I still has 34 rows but my stitches had decreased half a stitch to 20.5. As I am pretty narrow across my shoulders and as this jumper has plenty of positive ease I am not changing the needle size or doing another swatch.

27-07-2016

A really easy quick knit. The pattern for the WS alternates between 20 knit and 22 purl stitches and I have used stitch markers so that I don’t have to count when to switch. I just need to purl to the stitch marker purl 2 more stitches and move the stitch marker along.

24-08-2016 - Notes on Finished Jumper

Tension on finished jumper: 20sts x 30rows, quite a bit different to swatch. I am guessing that this could be caused by the weight of the larger pieces dragging it down as it was knitted on the same needles as the swatch. If not my tension has changed quite dramatically between the swatch and finished garment. I would be interested to know if anyone else thinks that this could be the reason.

Finished dimension: Length: 62cm Width: 57cm Pattern has length at 62cm and width at 54.5cm for small size. This is quite a bit wider than what the pattern states and the looser tension would account for this.

The length of the inside sleeves on the pattern is 46cm. I knew that this would be way too long with the dropped shoulders (especially as my jumper is wider) and therefore I joined the shoulder seams and knitted the neckband before starting the sleeves so that I could try on my Tochigi and measure the sleeves against me and the front and back as I went along.

I increased sleeves stitches every 10th row to 60sts and then every 8th row to 72sts. I knitted just one more row after the final increase before starting the decreases. My finished sleeves are 42cm long and finish half way down my palms - similar to what the pattern photo has. To be honest I would probably like them to be a couple of cms shorter to make my Tochigi perfect. However, seen as I am going to be giving my Tochigi as a present to my sister who is several cm taller and slightly broader across her shoulders than me I think that they will be the perfect length for her. If I were to knit Tochigi again I start the increases closer together from about 54 sts.

Despite these comments I am very happy with my Tochigi and whilst yes it is a bit more oversized than if it was the actual dimensions of the pattern it still looks great. My bust size is approximately 32inches/82cms. This gives me about 12inches/32cm of positive ease which I don’t think is unreasonable for an oversized sweater. My sister is a similar size and styled with skinny jeans which is how I and I know she would wear it it looks a balanced outfit.

Notes = Project Book 2