Cross Your Heart Sweater

As part of my vacation knitting, I am knitting what I call the Cross Your Heart Sweater. It’s my adaption of a design element in a Rowan pattern. 

The main design element of this sweater is the 180 degree twist of the knitted rectangle for the sweater front.  I liked the twist and how it created more femine shaping.  The twist meant that half of the front was in reverse stocking knit. Therefore,  I carried the reverse stocking knit stitch to the sleeve and half of the back for consistency. In addition, I made the sweater more form fitting to show off my waist.

Like a couple of other sweaters I’ve made in the past couple of years, this sweater is knitted in two rectangular blocks. The front is a wider rectangle. Sitting on the beach, my boyfriend and I spent a half hour drawing pictures in the sand to work out the geometry and math to get the height and width correct. Since I didn’t have my usual tools at hand, my boyfriend used his cellphone to do the calculations. This shows there where there’s a will, there’s a way! Based on our work, the base (or waist) of the front is about 1.4 times the waist of the back. The drop sleeves are knitted down so they can be measured for length.

The sweater is great since it helps me to deplete my stash. I am using 100% fingering weight alpaca in wedgewood blue purchased from Times Remembered. I have 8 ounces or approximately 1,016 yards. I purchased this wool at the 2005 Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival for a Suss Design and decided that the wool was too thin. As a result, the wool had sunk to the bottom of my stash with viable projects in sight until I started thinking about the Cross Your Heart pattern.  

Here is a photograph of the wool wound into two balls.

 Wedgewood Blue Fingering Alpaca 

Here is a photograph of front and back pinned in place. I am considering washing and blocking it before I sew it together to ensure that it lays flat and doesn’t roll. (Note: The line showing through the back is the swtich between stocking knit and reverse stocking knit.

 Cross Your Heart Sweater in Progress

In the process of knitting, my stitches have gotten tighter than my earlier gauge. Given the thin nature of the material, it has a strong propensity to roll. As a result, I was worried that, despite multiple iterations of calculations and discussions regarding geometry, it might not fit. But thankfully it does!

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