Me-Made-May 2019 - Winging It Jumper

Day 9 for Me-Made-May is a cozy, stay at home jumper. This is the first adult sized garment I had ever knit. It started from when I had just finished a baby jumper and I thought "How hard can it be to make one adult sized". It turns out, pretty hard. I managed it, and it was the plainest and squarest jumper there ever was.

The jumper is made out of super chunky, acrylic yarn. I had one huge ball that my friend gave me, but she had got it from Aldi, and I couldn't find any more when I realised I wouldn't have enough for the whole jumper so had to find something else that would do.

I started off swatching to find the right needle size for the type of fabric that I wanted. I'm not a very good swatch maker, I just don't really know how to do them properly, and I always feel like I'm using up yarn that could be useful somewhere else. Which is probably why I have never cast off a swatch. Which may have been my downfall.

I cast on in the end, writing down everything as I went, although I am still yet to actually write up what I did! I went for a top down jumper in the round. Which is how the baby jumper was constructed, and the only way I knew how. Needless to say it has quite a wide neckline, I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it is what it is.

I knit down the plain body, I added one little stripe before I switched to the other colour in a hopeless attempt to make it look like the colour change was intended. I finished off the body with a rib. I then started on the sleeves, these I was quite pleased with in terms of matching the body of the jumper. I wasn't so pleased with the cuffs though.

I had made the sleeves longer then the body, but probably not long enough, sadly only something I realised much much later. One of the things I was proud of when knitting my sleeves was picking up stitches in the armpit before knitting the rest of the sleeve and avoiding holes.

The jumper sadly just got worn for the finished object photos and never again. For part of Me-Made-May I am trying to finish off or fix garments I have but I don't seem to wear. This was one of them. I decided that one of the reasons I don't wear the jumper is because of the cuffs.

I had no experience of jumpers, and I didn't even know that sleeves had shaping in them - such a rookie. The cuffs were the same size as the rest of the sleeves and just kind of flopped around my wrists, I didn't like. So I ripped the sleeve ribbing out. I knit 2 together for every knit stitch in the first row of ribbing and then I knit the same amount of ribbing as I had done originally. This made it so much better. I felt that I was able to wear it around the house then.

Only after wearing it for Me-Made-May, I then found out the things I don't love about it. But they are livable with. I'll be wearing it again sometime, and maybe thinking of how I can improve it. I will now leave you with the instagram story, hopefully this jumper will get more wear in time. Perhaps I will grow to love it - Happy making!