18.03.2018

After watching video tutorials about swatching by my favourite video teachers, Staci (VeryPink) and Roxanne Richardson, and another one by the Grocery Girls, I finally started to swatch! I’m so excited! (BTW: In the swatch tutorial videos, they show how to make a swatch in the round without going all the way round. I found them very useful.)

And here’s another (vitally important!) tutorial about Ladderback Jacquard, which handles very long floats not showing on the front of the knitting, by Sockmatician.
Edit: The “It´s not about the hat” pattern by Susan Rainey also has very good explanations on Ladderback Jacquard. Her LBJ stitches look a bit “neater” on the wrong side of the work, because she purls through the back loop. In Susan Rainey’s pattern are links to video tutorials too, which cannot be found on YouTube otherwise. However, it is a paid pattern, but the technique is worth learning, and the money is a good investment. I highly recommend using this technique for the long floats in the Greek pattern of the cardigan.

Note to self: I have used yarnovers for the creation of the extra LBJ stitches in the setup row. M1 produced holes, but with yarnovers, the LBJ row receded nicely into the background.

Also, the “Ladderback Jacquard Tryalong” thread in the “Stranded” group here on ravelry helps a lot. You may not even need the paid pattern after a good read there. Especially posts starting from about here.

Here is a bit of knowledge about the Dude Sweater.

This is a thread I opened concerning the measuring of the sweater.
This is a thread I openend concerning the w&t plus one stitch I wanted to make for the collar short rows.

This is the KAL thread for the free (!) Dude Sweater in Andrea Rangel´s forum.
And this, however, is the thread for the paid version of the Dude sweater in Andrea Rangel’s forum.

09.06.2019

This pattern is quite hard on beginners.

I am charting out the cardigan for my husband in detail now, after not trusting the pattern giving the correct size (my swatches say otherwise, and also the projects of the others who knit this, where the recipients were of a similar stature as my husband).

The yoke part with different increases for body, sleeves and neckline shaping is very hard to understand and a chart should definitely be provided (for each size!) to help keeping track, especially in a paid pattern.

I discovered, as other people did in the projects, that the Greek pattern was not quite centered on the sleeves. There are wrongly stated totals of repeat rounds in the sleeves. Pattern may be smooth to knit when you got gauge and you are an average sized woman. But beware if you are knitting this for an oversized man.

04.09.2019

After many hours of charting out everything I finally have cast on this sweater!
And already I start to doubt whether I made the right decision to go with the 57 inch / 145 cm version. The ribbing seems to have a HUGE circumference, even though I went down several needle sizes for the ribbing and used 3,5 mm! I doubt that my husband needs sleeves this wide.

I especially have to keep in mind that I mustn’t incorporate the directions for tall sizes for the sleeves, since so, so many of the projects I see for this cardi have arms that are way too long.

24.09.2019

I have to say, as much as I have ranted about the complicatedness of this pattern, as much I do like to knit it now. It makes for an interesting knit, because after a few rounds of plain stockinette, you have to do something different.

The circumference of the sleeves, which seemed too wide at first, is good. I was wrong in that.

And I really am amazed at how the new trick I learned, ladderback jacquard, handles the very long floats (sometimes 20+ sts). It looks beautiful and it still seems very stretchy.

05.11.2019

Reminder to self: I used 3,5 mm needles for the ribbing, 4,5 mm needles for stockinette and 5 mm needles for colourwork.

10.07.2020

I completed the body and am now on my way to join the sleeves and work on the shoulders. At first I was afraid that the positive ease might be too much, since my husband meanwhile has a belly circumference of 134 cm and the width of the body part is 71 cm (so circumference = 142 cm). And it is not yet steeked, and the button band will be added. But I think now I am fine with it. I should have gone for the 135 cm version though, then I would have been able to incorporate a zipper like in the original Jeff Bridges sweater.

But - I KNOW that if I frog the body now and intend to reknit, I will be so frustrated by having to frog, that this project probably will stay in hibernation for the next two years. So I guess I will simply carry on. It looks okay on my husband so far. Not perfect. But I am working on myself abandoning my inner perfectionist anyway. So I guess it will be a good excercise for me, leaving something as it is and not redoing it because it has a tiny flaw.

13.07.2020

I only just realized that the reason why the colourwork of the body looks different from the colourwork of the sleeves is not because I was knitting tighter, but mainly because I was using 5,5 mm needles for the body and 5 mm needles for the sleeves
Ah well, no matter.

19.08.2020

Today, I have bound off the body!!! This project accompanies me now since March 2018, and suddenly the finishing line seems to be within hand’s grasp! It feels so unreal!

29.08.2020

I discovered needle felting as THE method for the reinforcement of the steek stitches. It is absolutely great, and very reassuring. Something for those among us who are still a bit anxious about cutting the yarn. With needle felting, the stitches definitely will not go ANYWHERE.
For more information, go see Meg Swansens video about how to do this, and read the article by Modern Daily Knitting. I can really recommend it!

13.09.2020

Finally, after two years in the making, and three years that I have bought the pattern, this sweater is finished! I am so happy with it!

I left out the button band part, because I didn’t like how the collar falls in most of the projects I’ve seen. Instead, I knit two facings for the zipper, and sewed them on with mattress stitch. The facings are each 7 sts wide (ribbed). 9 stitches would have been better though.

With the collar, I had a little more work. I have knit it three times in total. The first version was not deep enough and looked small. The second version made these curves to the left and right side of the neck opening (you can see this version in the pictures above). The third version came out perfect, because I had asked Kristenettes for advice. She had done hers similarly.

So what I changed was, I let the w&t wander outward instead of inward, starting at 34 sts counted from the edge on each side of the neck opening. I knit w&t, and from the second time on I encountered the particular w&t again, I knit w&t plus one more stitch, before making the new w&t. This helped reducing the curve.

What also improved the looks of the collar greatly was to add stitches every second row at the back raglans, and this way incorporating two wedges there, which helped to push the edges of the collar, so the curves disappeared even more. You can see this in the photos too. Important is to only continue M1’s until shortly before the fold of the collar, so that the wedges will be invisible when worn. I added 14 sts at each back raglan this way, so 28 sts in total. At first the wedges only consisted of knit stitches, but that looked ugly, so I changed the stitches to ribbing afterwards by letting the stitches concerned fall down and crochet them up again.

For the collar, I calculated my stitch ratio and picked up 2 stitches for every 3 rows at the slanted edges of the neck opening (or rather, I picked up every stitch and knit two together afterwards, because according to Hazel Tindall that gives a better result than skipping stitches).

I bound off with Lori´s Twisty Bind Off, which is said to be stretchy, but has no flare. I liked the look.

14.09.2020

Pre-washing and blocking:
Body length (without collar): 78 cm
Body width: 72 cm
Arms length (until collar): 81 cm
Arms width (broadest part): 22 cm
Arms width (slimmest part): 14,5 cm
Stockinette: 21 sts & 29 rounds / 10 cm
Colorwork: 20 sts & 23 rounds / 10 cm

19.09.2020

After washing & blocking, I had to realize that the cardi is not finished yet. The arms have grown way too long.
Will shorten them with this tutorial and this tutorial by Cheryl Brunette.

Post-washing and blocking:
Body length (without collar): 78 cm
Body width: 77 cm
Arms length (until collar): 85 cm
Arms width (broadest part): 20 cm
Arms width (slimmest part): 14 cm
Stockinette: 18 sts & 25 rounds / 10 cm
Colorwork: 18 sts & 23,5 rounds / 10 cm

20.09.2020

I took away almost 5 cm of the stockinette directly after the ribbing of the sleeves. I only left 2 rounds of white stockinette before the brown colour starts. Now - the knitting part is FINISHED!!!

04.10.2020

With the brilliant help of Suzanne Bryan, I hand-sewed a zipper on to the cardigan.

Originally I had wanted to give this task away to someone professional to be sewn by machine, but the lady in question wanted me to drop the sweater into an unsupervised box in front of her home (she works from home after she closed her alteration shop). She refused to see me so that I could have explained how I wanted it done. NOT going to happen!!!

She told me on the phone she would do the sewing and then I could pick it up from the box afterwards. She was not impressed by the fact that the yarn alone had cost me more than 400 Euros. Let alone all the working hours that have gone into making this! So I decided against having this made by someone else and did it myself.

06.10.2020

And still it is not finished…

Due to the sheer weight of the cardigan, we have noticed that the decrease stitches at the raglan corners become very wide when worn. So I will reinforce the stitches from the inside with double stitch…