This knit was lightening fast you guys! It took me a week! A WEEK! It would have taken 6 days but I fell into some difficulties…
Pattern: A Cropped Sweater for Winter, by Andi Satterlund (roughly)
Wool: Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 10ply in Lotus, Aquarium, Slate, etc.
This pattern doesn’t actually have hearts and diamonds and stripes and spots on it. I made that part up! I took the basic sweater instructions and made myself an Excel spreadsheet outline (making all the boxes square). Then I basically… coloured in! Making sure all the stripes lined up, and there weren’t more than 2 colours in a row.
I obviously made some changes from my design, and that was because I almost ran out of white! So pink hearts made an appearance. If I were to do a similar thing again, I’d make sure the hearts ran across the bust line, because they’re prettier than diamonds.
I made sure all the stripes lined up over the sleeves too. I changed the sleeve construction by doing them flat and then seaming them into the armhole, instead of doing the short rows. I just couldn’t face colourwork with 4 needles! This photo is to show the colours lining up:
When I sewed in the sleeves I discovered that the armhole was hanging way too low. It made the sleeve kind of weird and low and tight under my arm. So I took the sleeves off again and made a kind of gusset to fill in the space. I did this by picking up stitches from the underarm and knitting up, and doing the same to the sleeve so I didn’t have weird excess fabric. It worked out perfectly, and you can’t see unless I show you! I think it’s because my gauge is so loose that it ended up so long. The original design looks cropped, and mine does not look cropped!
Despite it being a little larger than the design, I like it because it doesn’t stretch the fair isle out of shape. A loose jumper is much more snuggly too. Don’t worry it does fit! But Andi Satterlund’s designs are often made with 2″ of negative ease, and I think this has no ease.
What do you think? Will you try making your own fair isle designs now?
Christina Hopgood 
amazing!!!!!! That's all I have to say.
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Thank you! It was kind of easier than I thought!
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Oh my gosh, I am so impressed. I can't believe you created that design yourself. It's adorable!
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I didn't comment when I first saw it but HOLY MOLY that's fast! You must be an intensely speedy knitter! I'm very impressed 🙂 Lovely work!!
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Thanks Vanessa! It was like colouring in 🙂
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