FO: John's zip raglan

John's sweater is finally finished, and just in time for autumn! It isn't perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it, and John seems to be too. He'll wear it, and I suppose that's all that really matters.

I pretty much stuck to the pattern, though I substituted Cascade Eco Wool for the Manos, reducing project cost by about $50. I think I may have used different increases in the sleeves than kfb's indicated in the pattern. There may have been other minor changes, but I didn't take very good notes and most of the knitting was done six months ago.

The pattern didn't say to block the sweater before attaching the zipper, but I'm glad I did. It made me more confident that there wouldn't be too much bulging or puckering. The only negative thing that happened in blocking is that the sleeves had been the perfect length and are now a tad long. I may block it again to try and restore them to their original length.

I ended up hand-sewing the zipper because I knew I'd have more control, and I wouldn't have wanted to mangle the sweater in the sewing machine after all the work I'd put into it. The hand sewing didn't really take that long. First I pinned it (with 'Enter the Dragon' playing in the background, which has resulted in a rather strange kung fu association with the sweater), and the next evening I sewed it on while watching Project Runway.


Some of the complaints I've read from other people who knit this pattern were that there wasn't enough shoulder room, or that the collar was too floppy. For whatever reason, these don't seem to be issues for this particular sweater. The ribbing on the body doesn't match up perfectly with the ribbing from the sleeves along the raglan lines in the front, but that doesn't bother me. Before I started the sweater, I was trying to do the math to fix that (following Alison's suggestions on the blue blog), but it started getting really complicated and I decided it would have changed the fit in a way I couldn't really predict and it wasn't worth the risk.

When I started this sweater, John was my boyfriend/fiance, and now that it is finished we have been married for over 3 months. It would appear that the boyfriend sweater curse has been defied.

Thank you John for patiently waiting all those months and for trying on the unfinished sweater countless times, especially on those hot summer days! Not to mention for setting up your photo equipment and modeling for the pictures! And for taking the work-in-progress shots, and the photos of all my other knitting projects. I hope this sweater keeps you nice and warm!

John's zip raglan cardigan
Started: Feb. 15, 2006
Finished: Sept. 7, 2006
Pattern: Men's Zipped Raglan from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, 42" size
Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool, color 9010, 3 skeins (used very little of the third skein, so probably about 1100 yards or so)
Needles: US 9 Denise circs