30-01-2020

As much as I adore the original vibrant colours used by Marie Wallin for Samphrey, most of them don’t suit me. Changing the colours proved more challenging than I thought it was going to be though. It was difficult to use soft blues and greens and not have them look very blah. I spent a lot of time swatching until I got something that worked.
I also had to change the sizing for my pear shaped large size. I didn’t want anything clinging around the waist (especially not multi-coloured stripes!) so I opted for a sweatshirt style that I can wear over anything and is perfect for walking at the beach which I do many times a week. I used size XXL for the top part of the sweater but the lower body has an extra 13 stitches on either side that were indented at the sleeve. The sweater is longer and wider than I intended as my gauge must have been looser than I first measured in the swatch. I tightened it up towards the top of the sweater but I didn’t want to stop knitting as I had planned the dominant red band to end just before the front neckline. I’m happy with the way it turned out though as it is so cosy and easy to wear. I also made the sleeves on the long side so they can cover my hands on a breezy day but be turned up while indoors.
I knit the sweater in the round, steeked it, knit the shoulder rows flat and then picked up the sleeve stitches and knit down to the cuff. The sleeves are a lot wider than the pattern (138 stitches down to 80 stitches at the cuff instead of 117 stitches down to 63 at the cuff)