Novel-T -- My First Sweater

Hi all -

Yep, that's right. I've finished knitting my first sweater! And I'm really excited with how it turned out!! This sweater is from the Novel-T pattern by Laura Nelkin. It's a really interesting construction. You start knitting at the edge of the right sleeve and then knit across the sweater sideways, ending at the edge of the left sleeve. Then you knit the sides together with a narrow lace panel. This was my first project where I had to make an accurate gauge swatch, so I was a little worried about it. But it all turned out well!

I bought a kit for the sweater because that's the only way you could get the pattern this early and they had a good price for the kit. Also, I wanted to join in on the knit-along for this pattern. I'm a big girl so there's a lot of yarn in my kit!

As I said above, you start knitting at the edge of the right sleeve.

Then you add stitches using a provisional cast-on to start the sides.

After some seemingly endless stitching, you split for the neck hole.

Then, you knit and knit and knit, joining the back and front after the neck hole the continuing on to the edge of the left sleeve.

Then you just join the sides with the lace panel and block it.

Here are some close-ups of the side and sleeve lace panels:

I'm really pleased with how it turned out! It actually fits perfectly! I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures of it on, but I live alone and it's really hard to take a picture of yourself that shows the whole sweater. I tried getting a picture using the mirror, but it didn't turn out well. And I don't like pictures of myself anyway, so I'm okay with that.

I'm surprised and happy that my gauge swatch worked so well and I was able to maintain gauge through the entire sweater. Some people had a lot of trouble with that. I guess it's harder to maintain gauge with cotton yarn because it doesn't stretch at all. And I'm proud of how even my stitches look throughout, at least to my eyes. There was some finishing the I decided not to do. The hem is designed to be optionally turned and finished, but I decided to leave it open to get a little more length. Laura also suggests that you crochet around the neckline to give it more stability. I started to do that with a single crochet, but didn't like the look of it so I took it out. I like the way the neckline looks without the crochet, so I decided to leave it this way and can always add some crochet slip stitches around the edge later if it needs it.

I have the supplies to make a couple more summer sweaters. I hope I can find the time to make them!

Nancy