Wotw sweater completed

Wool of the Week Breed Study Sweater
Today I can announce that I have finished my Wool of the Week end project—a rainbow sweater! Each stripe was a different breed of sheep’s wool (and a little alpaca thrown in, of course!) to test which breeds I like working with and learn a little bit more about each of them. I started off this project processing a sample amount of raw wool—washing it, prepping it, spinning it, and dyeing it. I wrote, for this blog, an article on each breed and my experience with it.
When I began the project, I just started by making the yarns. To tell them apart, I started dyeing them. As the project grew, I realized what I wanted to make with all of the yarns—a sweater! After a test run of the pattern in acrylic (I figured it might be best to test before using my special yarn) I finalized my pattern, and got to work. I based my pattern off of a simple raglan v-neck cardigan in stockinette stitch (the classic knitting stitch.) All of the yarn was spun in an Aran weight, and I spun as I went. I started off knitting after I had dyed my purples and blues, but then I just started spinning and knitting, spinning and knitting as much and as fast as I could. Early on in this project, I got the opportunity to go to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival 2023, and take a class with Martha Owen on High Wheels: mechanics, maintenance, and spinning. She spoke about the overall reason for spinning: clothes. In days before Target, Gap, Walmart, and even thrift stores, people spun thread to make cloth for clothes. “Start with adoration,” she said, “then spin like you’re naked.” And I spun, then, like I wanted this sweater. I did.

I’ve been knitting little things like scarves, hats, and mittens for ~5 years, but this year I made the leap into garment knitting (sweaters, shirts, etc). I’ve been thinking seriously about a handmade life. I make my own food in my kitchen from whole food ingredients, and I keep trying to make that area in my life homemade. Clothes are the next area that I naturally see I can work on. And, you know, to feed and clothe yourself are two of the tenets of survival.
I don’t have a lot of clothes that fit my body today, and most of the things I do have, I don’t love. But from the first moment I made my own hat on a knifty knitter knitting loom, I felt value, pride, and sheer glee in wearing what I make. To me, there’s no better feeling than a fresh pair of hand-knit, thick, woolen socks—weeeeeeeell, save the feeling of putting on a new, hand-knit sweater. New Socks can be a semi frequent occurrence, but a sweater obviously takes more time and effort.

(Some of my accessories I knit ☺️)

When I made my test knit for the WOTW sweater in acrylic, I was really unsure. I had never knit an adult sized sweater, and wasn’t really sure what size I should do. Measurements are helpful to me, but even when I knit gauge, it doesn’t seem to be quite right. Sizes don’t make sense to me—everything is relative! The beauty of knitting is, you can alter the patterns to fit you.
With the measurements on the pattern, I was a size large for no positive ease. I wanted a slouchy sweater though, so I cast on an extra large. Additionally, my yarn wasn’t exactly what was called for in the pattern (it was smaller—or lighter weight) and I was scared that would make the sweater even smaller, so I used larger needles. All this to say, the sweater was not too small. So I accomplished that initial goal. Sadly, this meant the sweater was waaaaaaay too big. In a move most knitters would not recommend, I decided to alter the pattern on the go rather than to “frog”. “It’s my sweater!” I thought, “I can try whatever I want!” And that is the beauty of knitting. Or rather the versatility. The test sweater did end up beautiful but did not really look like I had planned. It was a learning activity.

(Test cardigan)

(Baby cardigan)

For the WOTW sweater, I decided to follow the initial plan. Make a normal-looking, raglan-style, vanilla cardigan. I stuck to the plan, and was really happy with it by the time I separated for sleeves. At that point, I had a decision to make: how did I want to do the sleeves? I debated doing natural colored yarns and keeping the body of the sweater rainbow—I had several yarns already made for this, but in the end, I wanted to keep it a regular rainbow.
What I did to keep the stripes similar lengths was that I spun two big skeins for each color, or four little skeins. I used one (or half) on the body, and split the rest of the color for each sleeve. I knit my sleeves one at a time, and you know, this sweater is NOT precise. So, I’m actuality they probably don’t match up exactly. This doesn’t affect in the slightest how much I love this sweater and how perfect I think it looks.
There’s still one step to go before it’s done done, which will be blocking. Blocking is washing and laying out flat to dry. This allows the fibers to relax and have more drape. I’m just a little nervous that the colours could bleed so I’m enjoying the sweater so so much as is currently.

Isn’t it beautiful?

I’ll be back later with another blog round up on the breed study side of the sweater, but thank you to everyone who has been following along with me on this five month journey!