Checkered slipover

I saw a few versions of this knitting pattern floating around Instagram, but it was Gyasti’s reel that convinced me it had some wardrobe versatility and really nudged me over the edge to try it. The pattern is the Petite Knit Holiday Slipover, modified to add a large checkerboard intarisa pattern. Big blocks have been a running theme in some of my recent makes, definitely influenced by Paloma Wool although unfortunately recently stylistically christened as avant basic. Eh, I’ll take it, it’s a bit of fun to brighten lockdown yet still very wearable.

The pattern is easy to follow and includes those clever construction touches like picked-up shoulder stitches and joining in the round after the armholes are shaped, but I did it flat in two pieces to make the intarsia easier. I divided the number of chest stitches (after all the armhole increases are complete) by three (+1 for the edge ones for seaming) to know how many stitches wide to make each block. The final block is half as high, which looks a bit unbalanced on the back but looks pretty ok on the front given the lower neckline.

Now, one thing I say I’ll do every new knit project is have a bit more discipline around swatching and gauging… but I always just jump right on in using a ‘best guess’ mentality and make tweaks rather arbitrarily as I go (much like a lot of my sewing, but at least I have some good sewers’ instinct by now). The fit of this is basically acceptable but I’d like the tension to be overall tighter to create a denser fabric with a bit less ‘sag’. That’s because I used a less bulky yarn (Debbie Bliss Merion, same as my Craze Crop sweater) on too-large needles, which swatching would probably have told me. NEXT TIME, promise.

I’m quite pleased that the ribbed edges turned out quite neat at least, I went down a whole 4mm in needle sizes and twisted the knit stitches, binding off with my favourite stretchy sewn method a la Elizabeth Zimmermann. (I learned to sew from Elizabeth Zimmermann books and have always been fond of her.)

On this balmy fool’s spring day I found myself quite cosy in the flat with it layered over a T-shirt and with my Nenuphar coat over the top on a little bike ride. I’m tempted to make another one in a solid or tweed as it was so fast to make – a week of leisurely evening knit sessions – and the checks won’t go with every underlayer.

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