Hiro by Julia Farwell-Clay

Say hello to Hiro!

To say I am pleased with how this sweater turned out would be a most egregious understatement. I LOVE THIS SWEATER. Love it.

NaKniSweMo

As I mentioned at the beginning of the month, this was my entry into the National Knit a Sweater Month “competition”. It’s not an official thing, but at least in the official Ravelry group, you can win prizes if you knit a sweater consisting of 50,000 stitches or more—and I really liked the idea of challenging myself to knit that much in a month. I’ve knit garments pretty quickly before—my Long Sands cardigan took just nine days, but that was in bulky weight yarn and not 50,000 stitches. So to have finished this in just twelve days is kind of blowing my mind.

It’s certainly not a challenging sweater to knit. Worked in the round from the bottom up, it’s entirely stockinette (aside from tiny bit of ribbing), worsted weight yarn, it’s all around a recipe for success.

And then there’s the colorwork yoke, which makes a knitter (or at least this knitter) inadvertently race to finish the body so she can get to the fun part. Not that mindless stockinette can’t be fun, too.

Changes I Made

I added length to the body to help make up my stitch count (because as written, this would not have required 50,000 stitches) and I’m surprised at how much I like the length in this sweater. Usually I would have preferred it to be a couple of inches shorter, maybe, right at hip length. But the faced hem helps keep the body weighed down, so it looks and feels nice at this length. I also changed up the color at the sleeve ribbing. According to the pattern, the pink color would have been used at the sleeves. I used the light blue instead because I wanted to keep it to the yoke. Otherwise everything is exactly as written in Julia Farwell-Clay’s excellent pattern.

If I do this again next year, I think I’ll have to challenge myself with a DK or lighter-weight sweater. Not that a new sweater in two weeks isn’t it’s own incredibly wonderful reward.