{"id":10438,"date":"2013-08-29T08:15:11","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T12:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=10438"},"modified":"2023-03-07T21:41:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T02:41:35","slug":"snuggly-alpaca-sweater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/snuggly-alpaca-sweater\/","title":{"rendered":"snuggly alpaca sweater"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The weather never gets truly cold in Cape Town, but with poor insulation and no central heating in the houses, winter in South Africa can be very cold when you&#8217;re inside. It&#8217;s often warmer outside (in the sunshine) than in my house, which never really gets warm in winter, no matter how many portable heaters I turn on.<\/p>\n<p>If you peeked through my window right now, you&#8217;d see me sitting at my desk, bundled up in multiple sweaters, two pairs of socks, a shawl, a blanket, a scarf and wristwarmers. I&#8217;m glad that I get to use all the accessories I&#8217;ve crocheted, but it does get a bit frustrating when my layers make me as bulky as the Michelin Man&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>What I really needed was a warm sweater without bulk, so I ordered some beautiful fluffy dark teal alpaca yarn (KnitPicks Reverie) for my next knitting project &#8211; the <a href=\"\/blog\/knitted-shawl-collar-pullover\/\">shawl-collar pullover<\/a> I made looks warm, but it&#8217;s not enough for the cold days here. I used the basic size template I designed for that sweater, and made a few refinements, to produce this:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tealsweater1.jpg\" alt=\"alpaca knit sweater by planetjune\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Changes from my last sweater:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I made a more subtle rib at the collar and cuffs, and made the collar into a simple v-neck with a neat overlap at the point of the V.<\/li>\n<li>I added interior waist shaping (instead of the side shaping I used before) that I learnt from Amy Herzog (Knitscene magazine, Fall 2011).<\/li>\n<li>And I bought two <a href=\"https:\/\/shareasale.com\/r.cfm?b=1625237&#038;u=746874&#038;m=101492&#038;urllink=&#038;afftrack=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Craftsy online classes<\/a> (which I&#8217;ll review properly at a later date once I&#8217;ve had a chance to finish them) which taught me how to design and knit fitted set-in sleeves &#8211; a revelation! <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tealsweater2.jpg\" alt=\"alpaca knit sweater by planetjune\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I intentionally made the neckline very wide and open, as I wasn&#8217;t sure how the alpaca would feel next to my newly-sensitive eczema-prone skin, and I wanted to be able to avoid direct skin contact if necessary. I also added extra ease to this sweater from my last one, so I could wear a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath if my wrists were irritated without making the sweater look too tight. <\/p>\n<p>What I didn&#8217;t take into account &#8211; I am still a novice knitter! &#8211; was that the finer yarn, knit more loosely, would already add ease, even if the finished measurements are the same. Thanks to this, the finished sweater fits more loosely than I&#8217;d imagined it would, and the neck opening is even wider than I&#8217;d planned. But, although the waist shaping I added isn&#8217;t at all obvious, imagine if the waist had an extra 3&#8243; of fabric: waist shaping <strong>does<\/strong> make a difference, even in a garment that isn&#8217;t closely fitted. <em>Note: the bunching in the photo above is just drape due to how I was standing (oops!), not voluminous folds of extra fabric.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/tealsweater3.jpg\" alt=\"alpaca knit sweater by planetjune\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The verdict:<\/strong> I really love this sweater &#8211; it&#8217;s probably the warmest garment I own, even though it&#8217;s very thin and not at all bulky. The yarn is ultra soft and luxurious, and it doesn&#8217;t irritate my skin at all, and the colour is truly gorgeous. I do wish I&#8217;d made it slightly narrower, and less open at the neck, but those are things I can change next time &#8211; I&#8217;ve already ordered more Reverie yarn so I can make another one to keep me warm next winter \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t even begin to estimate how long it took me to knit this sweater, but it was worth every moment &#8211; it helped me get through some very stressful times, and I have a snuggly warm sweater to show for it! Unfortunately, I have no time to design my next knit piece at the moment, but I&#8217;ll definitely be adding to my handknit wardrobe once I&#8217;ve finished writing my book. Making garments and accessories that fit well enough to actually wear without being embarrassed is so rewarding &#8211; don&#8217;t you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The weather never gets truly cold in Cape Town, but with poor insulation and no central heating in the houses, winter in South Africa can be very cold when you&#8217;re inside. It&#8217;s often warmer outside (in the sunshine) than in my house, which never really gets warm in winter, no matter how many portable heaters [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-knitting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22904,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10438\/revisions\/22904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}