Beginner Knitter in Canada – Victory!

As a beginner knitter, I am excited and chuffed. I created my first wearable sweater from beginning to end for my 3 year old granddaughter. After some struggling with my first attempt at knitting a sweater, I tackled the same pattern again but this time with a different intarsia design – a boston terrier of course!

My boston terrier, Tuppence, gets so excited when granddaughter #1 comes over to see her. The Grand throws a ball and Tuppence flies after it and returns it to her. Rinse, repeat and it is hours of fun (apparently). So, putting an image of a Tuppence-like dog on the back of her sweater was just perfect. I just needed to find an image of a boston terrier and I found one and it was just the ticket!

I found the boston terrier dog design from Mary Maxim #PDL581. However, the sweater was not in the right size range I wanted, so I printed out the design chart on one page and the back of the sweater chart on a second page and drew in all the stitches onto the smaller sweater chart. Slowish, but quite doable. Both patterns called for bulky yarn (#5) and the design was small enough (just about!) to fit. It was considerable amount of time prepping, but worth the effort. I was off to the fetch the ball (see what I did there?).

This time, I also spent more quality time with YouTube learning and practising the left and right leaning increase and decrease stitches and also used the long tail cast on – much faster!

The Sweater Parts – vintage sweater collection from Mary Maxim

To recap, this vintage sweater is knitted in 6 parts: back, left front, right front, two sleeves and a collar. I worked the back first with all the intarsia switching of colours. I thought I would get that out of the way first. Initially, my thought was that this design would be easier than the umbrella with so many fewer colours. It was really just black and white (and red background).

However, I soon realized that intarsia complexity is not based on the number of different colours, but how often you have to switch to a new ball! So even though it was just black and white, due to the need to switch so often between the legs, I had tons of balls and strings and butterfly knots dangling off the back. In fact, it was even more complicated because it was tricky to find the “right” black, white or red dangling ball.

Needed to constantly focus and double check!

The back took me ages, but the results are rewarding. I left the dogs’ eye as the red background and it looks like a heart so that is just perfect. I added a stitch for her stubby tail onto the design too as Tuppence has a little more than average boston terrier screw tail (Cutest thing when it wags!). The design is a bit pixel-ly close up, but looks great with any distance. It is very obviously a boston terrier. Happy with the size of the doggie too – worked well.

Sewing up & Zipper

As a beginner knitter, I still find the sewing together a challenge. This is really the first place where you see how it is all going to come together. I was pleased that the two fronts match up nicely – even the garter stitch placket lined up.

The zipper was held on with double-sided tape from my sewing world and then sewn up on my sewing machine. Solid.

I finally figured out the correct orientation for the collar. I had to pull it a bit to line up with the top of each placket, but it matched perfectly even with the number of stitches cast off on each. Also, pulling the collar like that gives it a nice neck hugging curve – cozy. The right sleeve’s right leaning stitches were a bit wonky, but a definite improvement of the last one.

Blocking

I actually decided not to do much blocking after the last fiasco. After I smoothed and dampened and shaped, it seemed good enough. I figure it will get many washings over its lifetime, so I left it there before I messed it up any more.

OMG! I am so pleased with myself. In fact, I decided to go for the holy grail next – a full adult size sweater with intarsia. My brother is difficult to buy for, so I’m going retro and knitting him a sweater for Christmas similar to the ones we had as kids. I know it is a leap and he may not like it or want to wear it so I’m going in with eyes wide open. It will be a pleasurable challenge for my beginner knitter skills regardless so I’m doing it. Wish me luck!