The sweater is awesome! I’m so thrilled with the results.

This is my first Icelandic sweater and my first time working with lopi! This pattern was a wonderful introduction to Icelandic sweaters. There were lots of tips and references to tutorials which I greatly appreciated. Overall, the instructions were very clear but I did get stuck (but not very long) in a couple of spots. I learned so much knitting this sweater!

My friend Kyoko bought this yarn when she visited Iceland. The only problem is that she doesn’t knit! So, she commissioned me to knit this sweater for her.

Measurements

• Chest - 36”
• Waist - 33”
• Hips - 36”
• Sleeve inseam - 17”
• Collar - 8”
• Shoulder width - 16” (shoulder to shoulder)
• Arm scye - 8”
• Upper arm circumference - 8”

Sleeves
It took a couple of tries to start the first sleeve. At first, I cast on with only the plotulopi. Then, I re-read the information about working with unspun plotulopi.

Reinforce the edges by using the single lopi together with a lace yarn when you cast on and you bind off.

So, I decided to restart. I didn’t have lace weight gray yarn so I bought some 6 ply gray worsted merino yarn. I deconstructed the merino yarn into plies and used 1-2 plies as the lace yarn.

Cast on 36 stitches. I decided to start with DPNs. I didn’t have any circulars shorter than 16” and was terrified that doing magic loop might stress and snap the yarn. After the sleeve increased to 50 stitches, I switched to 16” circulars.

Body
The knitting for the body went very smoothly. Like for the sleeves, I combined the lace yarn with the plotulopi on the cast on.

I worked the sleeve motif above the ribbing for the body and knitted the body for a length of 16.5”.

The instructions called for a steek that is 2 stitches wide. I saw one comment that said that the 2 stitch steek was too small. I’ve steeked once and that steek was 5 stitches wide so I did the same here. Now that I am finished with the sweater, the 5 stitch steek was far too generous. However, there is nothing wrong with a wide steek other than there is more to trim. In hindsight, I think I could have made do with a 2 or 3 stitch steek.

Yoke
While placing the raglan markers, I removed all the previous markers. Yikes, I missed the note that said:

Remove back markers m2 and m3 but not front markers m1 and m4.

I figured out where to recover markers m1 and m4. Fortunately, the location of these two markers never shifts. For size 3, they are 21 stitches from the neckline edge. Whew.

I struggled on the instructions for the yoke motif, which said:

Rep motif framed in blue 43 times

Immediately, I divided 225 by 5 and got 45 times. Where were the missing 10 stitches? I finally thought to look at the chart and there were my 10 stitches, 4 stitches before the repeat and 6 stitches after the repeat. Doh! So, it is:

• Work stitches 1-4 of the chart
• Work stitches 5-9 (motif framed in blue) of the chart 43 times
• Work stitches 10-15 of the chart once

After first decrease, 181 stitches remaining.
After second decrease, 137 stitches remaining.
After third and last decrease, 93 stitches remaining.

Motif
It was so helpful to chart a few color schemes before making a decision. This was tedious but I’m so glad that I did it.

I charted with 3 and 4 colors and followed the color combinations in the pattern. We decided to use 4 colors so we’d use yarn from all 4 plates. None of the color schemes were appealing so we rearranged the colors and used the white yarn for highlights and the blue yarn to emphasize the zig zags. The rest fell into place.

Modifications
I added the sleeve motif above the sweater ribbing and knitted the collar and button band in a contrast color (the darker gray) just like quietleigh did with her sweater.

Sweater care
Here’s the care instructions from Urban Yarns: Hand wash cool, air dry flat. Due to the natural antibacterial and moisture-resistant properties of Icelandic wool, finished items rarely require cleaning other than the first wash to soften the fibers - from then on a thorough airing out is often enough.

Plotulopi Yarn
I read about this yarn and was very apprehensive about working with it. The yarn is unspun so it can snap easily. There was a caution to knit loosely and a recommendation to knit continental style instead of throwing. Since I prefer throwing, this worried me.

I used the long tail cast-on, which is my go to cast-on. In my research, I read that the German twisted cast-on should be used but the yarn kept breaking on me. My touch is just not light enough with the German twisted cast-on.

I’ve knitted two swatches and became less afraid of this yarn. Throwing with a light hand has worked fine.

The plates are generous so I had more than enough yarn to knit this sweater. For the main color, I needed 912 yards and with three plates, I had 1075 yards. But, I ended up using only two plates of the main color.

Weaving ends and grafting
I used a tapestry needle as usual but was very, very gentle weaving the yarn in and out.

For some reason, my brain faded and I grafted the stitches for the underarm on the wrong side (instead of the right side) of the sweater. This left a small seam. I thought about redoing it but given the fragility of the yarn, I decided to leave well enough alone.

My gauge
I decided to go with size 7 needles since I got 17.5 stitches per 4 inches. I swatched with size 6 needles and got 19 stitches per 4 inches. So, I went with the size 7 needles and luckily, there were no variances to deal with.

Resources
Lopapeysa - the Icelandic sweater
Introduction to Plotulopi
Working with unspun Plotulopi
Schoolhouse Press video - the first 3 minutes are generally useful. I don’t have a bun (18 plates), so I skipped the rest of the video.