My 2015 sweater was riddled with fit issues and poorly thought out color substitutions. The following year, 2016, I set out to be far more ambitious than I ended up actually being. Here I go trucking along sharing my annual Christmas sweaters if you’ve missed the previous two sweaters check out my handy tag here to get caught up.
Round Yoke Redemption?
In 2015 I knit an ill-fitting round yoke sweater. I could say the reason I knit this one in 2016 was because I wanted to redeem myself and show that I could knit a round yoke sweater that actually fit me. But that’s not exactly the case. That’s not the case at all, actually. What I had really set out to knit was an all over colorwork sweater with dropped sleeves. Once I got going on the all over patterned sweater, I realized it was going to be too much of a chore to knit, and I wasn’t about to do any stressful knitting on a tight deadline. So, I opted to change it to a simple round yoke. |
| My original idea for the all over pattern. |
I wasn’t overly happy with the decision though. I love the sweater and it turned out great, but to me, at the time, it felt like a cop out to do two round yoke sweaters two years in a row. I low key wish I could revisit this one year and do the original all over pattern I was planning on. But I’ll probably think it’s a cop out, too. (haha)
Leftover Beads
When I was still planning on knitting the all over pattern, I ran into the dilemma of the snowmen’s faces. I’m not too keen on knitting with three colors at a time, I had done that in my previous Christmas sweater and really I had no desire to do it again. My two options then were to knit the whole thing leaving the faces blank and then duplicate stitching the eyes and nose on later. Or using beads to act as the coal and carrot. Since I’d rather adopt a pack of opossums and raise them as my own children than duplicate stitch anything, I decided to go with the beads. It was perfect, I had a ton of leftover beads from my first Christmas sweater so I would finally be using up those beads and I wouldn’t have to duplicate stitch.Fast forward to after I swatched, the beads were transparent, I tried to pretend I liked the look, but I really didn’t so I had to buy opaque ones. Keep in mind, at this point, I was still knitting an all over pattern. Needless to say, I have a whole new set of beads that I don’t know I’ll ever use. Haha, I’m the worst.
Did I meet the deadline?
Every year I set a deadline to have my Christmas sweaters blocked and wearable by Christmas Day. Every year I’ve made that deadline. Every year except the year I knit this sweater anyway. I don’t remember exactly why I didn’t have it done on Christmas Day, but I do know that was when the tradition of going to my grandpa’s house to celebrate with family on Christmas Day ended and we all got together at a later date. I’m guessing when the actual get together date was set I was like, “Screw it! Now I got a whole ‘nother week to finish this thing.” I ended up casting off on Christmas Day and had it blocked maybe the next day. But in my mind, that doesn’t count as meeting the deadline even if I didn’t need to wear until a week later.Next Week
To date, this was my most successful Christmas sweater. It fits just like I had intended it to fit with the one exception that the sleeves grew A LOT during blocking. The sweater also taught me another important thing. I do not care for round yoke sweaters. I don’t have any real reason for it, they’re just not my cup of tea.Next week, I’ll be sharing my 2017 sweater. If you don’t like spoilers stop reading. The 2017 sweater is by far my subtlest Christmas Sweater.
Don't miss my progress on my 2018 Christmas Sweater(vest)! follow me on Instagram to see all my work-in-progress shots.
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