This week’s Freebie is also a finished project, and I’m super pleased with it! I started this simple spring/summer pullover a little late in the season last year and lay fallow over the winter, half finished. Lucky sweater that it is, I caught a virus and had a nice, long visit with my couch and Netflix last weekend (watch the new season of House of Cards, it was excellent).
On The Beach
I initially took on this project to learn something new things: 1. knitting with linen, and 2. try making a contiguous sleeve (a method for making a sweater with set-in style sleeves that is knit in the round, from the top-down).
The contiguous sleeves look great, I just followed the instructions and they worked perfectly. Unfortunately, I made that portion of the sweater last summer and the technique has since been wiped from my memory. I’ll have to give it another go on another pattern. I find the sweater fits large, but I think it was designed to have a lot of ease. If I did it again I’d make at least one size smaller size, but I’m not normally into oversized garments.
The linen also looks great, and the blocking was super easy (washer & dryer). The pure linen yarn doesn’t behave like any other yarn, so take a look at my notes on Ravelry before starting. You’ll definitely want to make a tension swatch and block it before casting on. If you find Linen as bit over budget you can easily substitute Cascade Ultra Pima or Cascade Ultra Pima Paints.
Materials
- FREE Pattern on Ravelry
- Louet Euroflax Sport (I used 3.5 skeins for a size medium) or Cascade Ultra Pima
- 4.5mm/US7-29″ circular needles
- 4.5mm/US7-16″ circular needles or double pointed needles (use DPN if you are making a size XS)
- Locking stitch markers
Notes
