Vintersol - Sweater for my man :)

It's been a while... the new year has come. First, I want to wish you all a happy and healthy 2015!! :) I hope you had some quiet time over the holidays, a nice New Year's Eve of course, as well as a lovely start with this first week in january.

The days were busy before Christmas, a lot had to be prepared and organized and I also knitted some gifts for loved ones that I want to show you in the upcoming posts. Because, finally, I CAN show them to you! :) (it wouldn't have been a surprise if I had put them up on the blog before...)

I want to start with my favorite one and also my biggest Christmas project: the Vintersol Men Sweater! :)

Because I am knitting such nice and fitting clothes for myself, for Christmas my man wished for a sweater. After getting big eyes and ears because of excitement, I designed this sweater following his wishes: raglan shape, hood, diagonal zipper, stockinette for the body part.
I added the double stich pattern for the sleeves and a cord for the hood.

He chose super soft Drops Baby Merino yarn in beautiful dark grey (absolutely his color!). It should be "as soft as possible", so merino is the perfect choice ;)
But, if you are going to make a sweater like this (will say, a big one), maybe take a look at other wool fibres. There are super soft and also superwash treated kinds that are not merino. Because I think because of the merinos short hair (which makes it so soft), the yarn is relatively compact which, in turn, makes it also kind of heavy I think. So, it risks to get a bit streched over time.

I knitted the body and sleeves together while doing the raglan shape and left a U-shape open for the neckline.


I made the neckline and hood together in two pieces. (left and right from the zipper) So, a neckline front piece and one half of the hood is knitted as one.

After knitting this two halves, I used kitchener to seam the hood in the back and up and finally connected the neckline in front by adding the zipper.
In the end, I picked up some stiches around the hood to add the "tube" for the cord.

The double stich pattern on the sleeves gives a very masculine look in combination with the stockinette body in my opinion. I really like it! :)












Next week I will make one last post for this sweater because I am going to show you how I added the zipper in the front.
Until then, let's enjoy the winter, the snow and the sun - and of course one of the best Christmas gifts ever! :)

I am very happy how the sweater turned out (just how I imagined it) and that I could learn new things, like adding a zipper or a hood, while making it.

And of course I'm not the only one that's happy about the sweater, and that's the best and most important part - my man loves it! :) :) :)

This absolutely beautiful sunny winter day last week, when I made the photos, inspired me to give the sweater the name vintersol, which is the Swedish word for winter sun.

Isn't it just beautiful!? Especially while being cuddled up in one's new and super soft and cozy sweater ;)

Have a wonderful week everyone! <3
Love,
Stefanie

If you want to see the progress of knitting this sweater and get some nice HOW TO advise on some things that came up during knitting this project, you can find the WIP-Wednesday posts from this project here:

Idea & Design

Double Stich pattern + HOW TO use Excel to calculate knitting

Joining a seamless sweater for raglan shaping + seaming the underarms

HOW TO install a zipper on knitted garments


You can also find this project on Ravelry.