Guthrie 2.0-aka heavily modified

This was one of the first color-work sweater I ever knit, I think it was my second color-work sweater to be exact and I loved how it turned out. Sadly, after I finished it, I realized DK weight garments are way too hot for this mild Bay Area climate and I have never worn it. I did however enter it in the local county fair and got 4th place so that isn’t too bad for the first time entering my knitting into the fair. Anyway, I saw two wonderful fingering weight versions done by Dankfiber and knew I would have to make a fingering weight version one day. I am not one to knit a pattern twice even though I often say I will. I have realized I probably should knit items twice because I often learn so much from the first time, I knit something that the second time around the garment would be so much better. Well after two years have passed, I finally decided to knit a fingering weight version. I think what pushed me over the edge was that I found I am now obsessed with Spincycle Yarns and that I have mastered steeking. I realize that not only do I not wear anything warmer than sport weight yarn, but that I am way more likely to wear a zippered cardigan than a pullover sweater.

I made several modifications for this sweater and thought since I already wrote a nice, detailed post about converting patterns for different weight yarn that I should also write one detailing all the changes I made. So without further ado please feel free to read all about my modifications.

Gauge: I went with fingering weight as my MC, in the original pattern the MC is a DK weight, but as stated above DK sweater are just too hot for this climate. My gauge was of course way off, but I have always found that to be the case with Caitlin Hunters patterns. I ended up knitting a size medium (42” bust) to get a 34” bust (please refer to my post on how to convert patterns for different weight gauges for more details).

Steek: It then got a little tricker because I decided to make it a cardigan instead of a pullover sweater. To do this instead of knitting back and forth (I hate purling and knitting color-work not in the round) I decided to steek it. Steeking a pattern that is not meant to be steeked is easy enough, you simply add 5 stitches to the CO (cast on) and off you go. What made this a little trickier is that the BOR (beginning of round) for this sweater is in the back and the pattern is not perfectly symmetrical. In order to correct this, I added 2 stitches to my CO to get a symmetrical collar ribbing and then when doing the first increase I omitted 2 stitches to get back to the correct number of stitches. In terms of the BOR I kept it in the back while working the short rows and then changed it to the beginning of the steek once the short rows were complete. I also knit both the collar and the hem flat to help decrease some bulk. For the steek reinforcement I used both a machine sewn and a crocheted reinforcement because the yarn I used was a superwash yarn. Luckily both yarns although being superwash are pretty sticky and felted well together. I decided on using an icord edge after much back and forth on what type of edging I should to use. I like the icord edging because it is clean and simple and doesn’t distract from the business of the pattern. In terms of the zipper, I hand sewed it in after a failed attempt at machine sewing it. I also hand sewed a jacquard ribbon to cover the zipper edge and the steek edging. The ribbon did add some bulk to the edges, but it isn’t’ too bad. Hand sewing both the zipper and ribbon took forever but I am so glad I put in the extra effort to make it look perfect. I will also say I am obsessed with the ribbon; I think it adds a fun pop of color when the sweater is not fully zipped. In the future I think I may cut back some of the steek to help decrease bulk.

Length: In terms of the length of the sweater the original pattern calls for the body to be 11.5” which results in a cropped sweater. You all know how I feel about cropped sweaters, although I will say when looking at everyone’s finished projects, they all seem rather normal length to me and tend to sit right at the belt line. Anyway, I decided I wanted my sweater to be a full length which for me is about 15” from the underarm. Because I wanted to do a cardigan version with a zipper instead of buttons, I also had to be careful about the length. Zippers only come in certain sizes, so it was either 22” or 24”. After some quick math 24” seemed to the right size for me. The pattern is nice because it allows for adding length by repeating certain part of the pattern. I originally just added an extra arrow but was then worried the sweater would be too long after blocking so I did a quick block to check my length. Of course, when wet it seemed way too long so I blocked very gently and tried to make it as short as possible. Well, that was a mistake because of course when it was completely dry it shrunk to 22”. Not at all what I was going for. I thought maybe it might work but I tried it on, and I didn’t like the length, so I frogged back to add more color-work. At first, I thought of just doing more arrows, but I didn’t want that may so after looking at other peoples finished projects, I decided to knit the pattern in reverse and leave the arrows out altogether. I love how it turned out and makes it different from my first Guthrie sweater. Luckily with the change in pattern it added the length I needed although to be honest I probably could have done one round of arrows and been perfectly fine. I did block slightly aggressively to get the 24in length.

I am thrilled with how it turned out and so glad I stayed the course through multiple frogging sessions. This is one sweater I know I will actually wear and feel comfortable in because I wear zippered jackets all the time. I know I will be converting a lot more sweaters into zippered ones in the future. This was also the first time that I didn’t get overly frustrated each time I had to frog. I knew it would be worth it if I just stayed the course and didn’t give up. The result is something that I am very proud of and can’t wait to show it off.