A tale of two sweaters
August saw the end of the 100 days project looming on the horizon (8 September to be precise). My project was all about time, just making the time each and everyday for 100 days to do the things I love, so I called my project #RosieSavesTime.
I wrote a post when I was forty days in describing a few of the pieces I had finished in that first month or so, but there was plenty more to keep me busy.
It all started a long time ago…
After I finished knitting the Fairisle cardigan, there was another project on the needles just crying out for attention. This one has quite a back story, which started at Perth Yarn Festival in 2022.
Roger approved of my purchases in Perth.
As you can see I got quite the haul of yarn! I don’t tend to keep much of a stash as I like the yarn I buy to have a purpose, so each bundle of skeins was destined to be a garment in its own right.
To Roger’s right you can see some particularly shiny looking luscious orange, turquoise and magenta yarn. The reason it’s so shiny is because it is pure silk! It was being sold at a bargain price by the magnificent Bow Fiddle Yarns as it was the end of a line so I just had to snap it all up.
The False Start
Eventually I picked a pattern and started knitting, but it was a garment knit in pieces, not in the round like I prefer. This meant that progress was slow compared to my usual knitting as it had a deep rib to start, followed by intarsia (which isn’t something I particularly enjoy). As I write this now I am wondering, possibly much like you are, why I picked a pattern with so many features I don’t like?? Tell me I’m not the only one that does this?!
The Great Rip-Out
It sat throughout 2023, occasionally having a few rows knit on it, and was moved from Glasgow to Troon along with everything else last summer. It wasn’t until the start of this year that I gave myself a talking to, determined I should crack on with it. When I picked it up again after so long, I had to re-read the pattern carefully and realised I had been using the wrong size of needles and it was never actually going to fit me!
(You can actually tell how much I didn’t like it as I hadn’t taken any pictures of it at all between 2023 and 2025!)
It was the sign I needed to rip it out and start again.
The Second Sweater
Like many knitters, I have an extensive queue of things I want to knit on Ravelry so it didn’t take long to decide what to use the yarn for. The Easy V Sweater by Caitlin Hunter, aka Boyland Knitworks.
Pattern for Easy V Sweater by Caitlin Hunter aka Boyland Knitworks.
I’d been lusting after this pattern for a while but had never found a yarn I wanted to use. It called for Aran weight yarn so I decided to use the silk held together double. It was an extra bonus that I was able to use up some other bits and bobs left over from a previous project, along with the silk, to create the variegated effect in the original pattern.
Before I could get started I had to unfankle the silk yarn that I had ripped out from the previous sweater, check I had the right needles then get going.
Easy V sweater knit in pink and orange silk with some other variegated yarns for added interest.
The Beginning of the End
The shine, the drape, and the weight of this sweater just felt amazing, right from the start. I loved the way the colours work together in the patterned yoke, but it wasn’t until I was working on the body, with the sleeve stitches on scrap yarn, that I could really get a good photo. It was around this point that the 100 days project started in June and I was determined to get it finished.
The first challenge was to finish the plain knitting on the body before adding the deep rib at the hem. I was so determined that I was knitting it everywhere - even on the train!
When I finished the Fairisle cardigan, I was desperate to cast on another project, which I allowed myself to do, knowing that I would soon have two projects requiring lots of stocking stitch! It wasn’t until I came back from my Hebridean adventure that I really knuckled down to get this one off the needles.
I made sure to post about it on Instagram (click below if you missed the posts), and by the 19 July I had finished the main part of the body with the deep rib! I was so chuffed to reach this landmark, but then I had two sleeves to do!
The Journey to Sleeve Island.
Another month passed, and it was the middle of August before even the first sleeve was long enough to start on the pattern at the cuff. I was out with the measuring tape every evening to see if it had magically grown by a few inches, but eventually I got there.
Almost ready for the pattern…
Colourwork has begun…
I knitted away on the patterned cuff and even decided to use the orange yarn to create the rib, rather than the same pink as the body.
The Big Mistake
It was all going great until I cast off the second sleeve 10 days later, and discovered that I’d forgotten to go down a needle size for the rib on the second sleeve, which meant that cuff was much narrower than the first one. Obviously this meant that I had to rip out the second cuff! It may be every knitter’s worst nightmare but it gave me a secret opportunity I never knew I needed!
I wasn’t 100% happy with the definition of the pattern round the sleeves. The first few rows of the zig-zag pattern were being done with one strand of the pink silk, and one of the variegated yarn from Mothy and the Squid. I figured that it might look better to ditch the pink silk and use two strands of the variegated yarn instead.
Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out! You can see my cries for help and conundrums on Instagram, but in the end I was so pleased that I went to the extra effort. When you’re slowly making your own clothes, using natural materials,(which let’s face it, aren’t cheap), you want your finished garment to be something you absolutely love.
By 1st September it was all done, cuffs re-knit, ends sewn in and ready to wear. Making your own clothes is 100% slow fashion. True, I maybe take the SLOW part to extremes, but in the end, the satisfaction of making something with your own hands is absolutely worth it!
This sweater is a testament to the slow revolution. It represents hours of mindfulness, patience, and a refusal to be part of the fast-fashion cycle.
Do you like to make your own clothes? Which projects have you struggled with? Let me know in the comments…