The equation is simple. Cold weather = time to knit. And believe you me, my knitting needles have been clicking away.

Usually, when the bug bites, I pull out fun yarns and make socks. Over the years, I’ve also made hats and mittens. In my entire knitting career (which is almost twenty years now), I have made a total of two sweaters. One was too small for me. The other wound up with double wide sleeves and a short body. My odd results have kept me from sweaters for a long time, but I finally decided to try again. I was inspired by a specific sweater. I had tried on one a friend made and loved it, so it was time to take the plunge again.

I got the pattern from the book Yarnplay: Colorful Techniques and Projects for the Creative Knitter by Lisa Shobhana Mason.

The sweater, which is also on the cover, is Poppy (pp. 99-101) and it uses several yarns including a multi-color to make striped sleeves. The cool thing is that the body has vertical instead of horizontal knitting. I opted to put together a bunch of different colors of Manos del Uruguay wool yarn to get the stripes since I couldn’t find a multi that I liked. I wound up with a sweater that actually fits me, almost as big a deal as finishing a sweater in the first place.

Tomorrow: Sweater 2:The Knitting Continues