If you’re curious about the ranch from whence this wool was procured, click here. Lil’ Orphan Annie, who is featured in the final picture, is growing into a strong and healthy ewe with a lovely woolly coat and roams the fields eating grass and hay with her best friend Janet the Angora Goat, along with her other peers and elders.

April 30, 2020

Success! Worked up large-ish swatches on odd number of stitches for both stitch patterns and washed/dried. Made gauge with 5mm for body, 4.5mm for arms, and 4.5mm for hems/cuffs with this wool. Let’s get started already.

Keeping Track

• I found this link helpful for the arm stitch pattern (half brioche), and this link helpful for arm increases.
• Used crochet provisional cast on and cotton waste yarn for tubular cast on with clear instructions given. Best tubular cast on yet; will use this technique in the future.

Mods
Crocheted all pieces together, and a selvege edge made this easy:

• Every RS row: wyib slip first stitch.
• Every WS row: wyif slip first stitch.

For the back piece, I knitted to the required length and then added seven sets of short rows before casting off neck edge using this technique.

An additional hank of yarn was necessary to complete the sweater because of the extra yarn used in the back short rows.

For the assembly, I attached the top edge of each sleeve to the body first and then joined the seam from the hem of the body up through the cuff of the sleeve all in one.

General Notes

• Love this new-to-me technique of tubular cast-on, but next time I’ll knit the first four rows or so on a smaller needle. The band flares out, so I’m a bit disappointed with that. However, the loose cast-on worked well for the cuffs and wouldn’t change anything there.

• My tension differed between the left and right twist stitch patterns, and even though I paid attention that it remained consistent throughout, it still resulted in a very slight twist to the body.

• The yarn came from the same shearing and is undyed, but the colour is not consisted throughout. The photos posted show several clear lines where this is obvious, but doesn’t show so much how is other areas it’s lighter. I noticed none of this whilst knitting, but I just love the result. The effect is unwanted in dyed wool, but this is completely natural and lends itself beautifully to the rustic characteristic of this yarn. Sheep don’t have the same colour to one another or an even colour conformity within their own fleece.

• This pattern was well written and easy to follow, but I missed a section with all three stitch patterns written out with the amount of stitches needed to create gauge swatches.