It’s 11:30 and I have almost missed National Sweater Day! This is a fairly aggregious error for such an avid knitter, I blame some friends who moved today and baby Hunter entirely. In fact, I have knit many more sweaters (that still don’t quite fit, but are getting closer) for her than myself. I am realizing as a write this that if I had finished all the sweaters I had started, that last statement wouldn’t be true. And there you have it, my dirty little knitterly secret: I have a terrible track record with finishing sweaters! I don’t really think it’s the sweaters though, I think it’s my intense love of knitted accessories and the ease with which I can be distracted.

When Anina told me that today was National Sweater Day, my first thought should definitely have been ‘I should work on my Reindeer sweater!’ but instead it was ‘I should look for a new sweater project on Ravelry!’. Thus the unfinished sweaters….. I went looking for some of the most popular sweater patterns on Ravelry and boy did I find some great ones. I like to start with the most popular because the patterns are usually (disclaimer: usually) very well written and there are lots of projects to look at. I don’t always stop at the most popular but I think it’s a good place to start. Here are the 3 popular sweaters I’m dying to knit up, I just need to pick one…..

First up is the Shalom Cardigan. This sweater description had a few words that really pique my interst: top down and button closure. I love to knit sweaters from the top down because I will avoid seaming at all costs. I think I may have mentioned my button affinity before…? The other nice thing about this sweater is the gauge, 13 stitches per 4 inches on 7mm needles, it will knit up in a snap. Perhaps this is the project I need to improve my sweater confidence. The only problem with this cardigan is the sizing. The pattern is written for a 32-34″ bust and that I am not. There are some instructions to make the sweater bigger and a lot of people seem to have done just that so it’s not that big of a deterrent for me.

Next is Owls. This pattern is wildly popular, 1157 projects and counting! I love a good cable any time and I knit an iPod cozy with the charming owl cable already and loved it. The sweater includes a lot of button eyes, which gives me yet another liscense to button. Kynna is currently working on her own Owl sweater and the thought of us paling around in matching sweaters sounds kind of fun. There is also a mini Owl (Owlet) pattern so I could match Hunter up as well…too much?

The third pattern is somewhat new but already has a lot of projects, the Tea Leaves cardigan. One of my fave knitters at the shop knit this one up and it just looked so good I was immediately smitten. It has quite a simple shape but I’m drawn in by the details. This sweater definitely needs a hand dye in my opinion and perhaps even a slightly variegated yarn. For this purpose I am leaning towards a Dream in Colour Classy, just the right amount of variegation while remaining washable.

Now I just have to decide which one I’ll knit first, I will keep you updated!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 18th, 2011 at 12:48 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.