highlandheffalump

Such a Winter’s Day

Details

Pattern:

Such a Winter’s Day by Heidi Kirrmaier

Yarn:

New Lanark Wool & Textiles in Iris colour (a blue and pink mix, part of their Heather Blends collection).  100% wool (blended breeds).  Aran weight yarn, 100g balls.  (Their Aran wool is spun on a traditional 19th century spinning mule, which is powered by renewable energy.)

Cost:

$6.53 (£5.15) for the pattern, however this is a discounted price as I bought 4 of Heidi’s patterns which resulted in a discount.  The yarn cost £49 for 7 x 100g skeins.
Total cost to me was £54.15, excluding labour.

Timeline:

Started – 9th June 2019

Frogged – 17th September 2019

Re-started – 30th September 2019

Completed – 23rd November 2019

 

 

Pattern summary

This is my 2nd of Heidi’s patterns, but the first that’s a jumper (sweater).  Reading her Ravelry thread for this jumper there seemed a lot of confusion over the first few rows, so I proceeded with caution.
 
I started off making the M2 size with 4mm needles, but worried it was going to be too big so switched to M1 size!  The switching between knit and purl for the moss stitch was causing some pain in my lower arm, so I decided to pop it on hold until I’d done the Portuguese Knitting course on 7th September.
 
After the course I started working on it again only to find that when I split for the arms this jumper was huge front and back and had tiny arms.  My maths had been totally out and it all needed ripping out.  So on 17th September it was frogged.
 
On 29th September I did a new swatch with 3.75mm needles and that was much closer to gauage.  So I re-started making size M2.  When I split for the arms it was a bit snug, so I had to do an adjustment (added more rows and 2 stitches under each arm), this was due to my row gauge being slightly off and me not liking it tight under the arm.  After trying it on with the stitches on waste yarn I made a mistake and re-thread the 4mm needles!!  I didn’t notice for a while, so I adjusted the waist decreases to compensate, then made an error during the decreases that lead to more stitches on the front than the back.  None of this is the pattern’s fault…total user error!
 
When I was nearing the bottom of the body I cast on an arm…of course to continue my theme of making mistakes I cast on the M1 stitches, knit to the elbow and tried it on and the sleeve was too snug…when I checked why I realised I was supposed to be knitting size M2.  You couldn’t make it up!!  This jumper has had more mistakes made on it than anything else I’ve ever made.
 
So long as you can read your stitches then this pattern isn’t complex.  I have seen a lot of people on the Ravelry group not understanding certain things Heidi writes in her patterns,  but this is my 2nd of her patterns so that helps.  The trick with the stitch pattern is to always look ahead a few stitches and then work back whether your first stitch should be a knit or purl.  
 
There’s a typo I found in the cuff section and Heidi has confirmed it shouldn’t say stocking stitch it should say in pattern.  
 
I’m getting some curling on the hem and collar but it isn’t blocked yet, we shall see if this resolves it.  I added more length so it covers my belly.
 

Yarn summary

The colours in this yarn are so pretty and complex.  I have some of their other colours in my stash and each have so many colours and tones blended.  So although from a distance this appears blue, there is a good amount of pink in it! The wool has a wooly feel, a bit rougher than Shetland wool.  They combine many breeds.  This will always have a long sleeve t-shirt under it so that shouldn’t be an issue.  4 other people on Ravelry had used this yarn for this pattern and I loved all their finished items.  One had used 4mm needles to produce a firm structure and another had used larger needles to produce a looser structure.  The other 2 didn’t give details on which needles they’d used which is frustrating.  As mentioned above, accidentally I’ve used 3.75mm at the top, so copied that on the collar, the rest is in 4mm and I like the structure so far.  We shall see how it wears.
 

Photo Gallery

It’s a dreich day here, so the photos aren’t great and they are zoomed in and have lost some quality, but you’ll get the gist I’m sure.
 
 
 

16 comments

Leave a comment