Man-a-Long Baby!

My first adult sized sweater. Yippy, dancing in the streets. Glory Be. How much fun is it? And how cute. The Pattern is the Big Sack Sweater from Stitch ‘n Bitch. The designer is Jenna Wilson.

Project Notes:

Yarn: Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair. I like this yarn a lot. It’s soft and easy to knit with. There are some things I did not like about it. It is weak, this goes against the Knitters Review opinion. It broke very easily. Especially when seaming. It would just pull apart as I tugged at it to tighten up my mattress stitch. VERY FRUSTRATING. Otherwise, it’s a lot of fun. I mentioned this before, I am afraid that it won’t hold up to the wear of time. Stay tuned.

Pattern: 1 - The construction of this sweater is pretty straight forward. I did have some problems with the raglan shaping when I first tried it. That was user error. I was knitting at a different gauge than the pattern and I tried to make up for it during the raglan decreases on the front panel. Not possible. 2 - I added about 4” to the length of the front and back – it’s still pretty short. I can’t imagine what it would be like at the intended length. 3 - I also shortened the sleeves by 4”.

As far as I can tell there weren’t many issues with the pattern. However, because it was easy to understand…I didn’t pay too much attention. Click here for the errata.

There is a pretty large issue with the sizing. The arms are not wide enough to accommodate a male’s physique. I knit at size large intending to get a small for my lovely husband. Everything worked out according to the patterns schematic. I blocked and seamed. It’s super tight on him around his shoulders and upper arms. He refuses to take the thing off, he loves it. But that is because I made it and he is a good husband. I think it makes him look a bit odd. It fits me perfectly. Hmmmm.

Mistakes: I decided to include these so that I’m aware if I tackle it again and also because I’m a semi-beginner knitter I have this odd perception that the masters out there don’t make and don’t tolerate mistakes. I am usually pretty anal and glaring issues were corrected. Some things I left – 1. A raglan decrease on the sleeve one stitch too close to the end of the row. I put this on the back – you can’t tell in the sea of stockinette. 2 – Missed a cable. It was at the top of the neck. I didn’t realize until I had already bound off the neck. In the end, I like it better. It really sets off the neck nicely. 3 – The roll neck isn’t long enough. It doesn’t roll as dramatically as the sleeves and bottom. 4 – Seaming. Man there was a lot of seaming. It took and entire afternoon of football to seam this bastard. Some of my seams aren’t that great…but you know what, it’s a hand-knit sweater. It should look that way.

There were other mistakes. But you get my drift. It’s not perfect but yet it looks pretty damn awesome. This was completed as part of the Man-a-Long. We’ll take a full spread of pictures with the goal of kicking some butt in that portion of the competition.


I do have a question... the back seems to be shorter than the front. The back is not shorter. I blocked both sides to the exact same length. Is this something that I did when seaming it? Is there some trick to preventing this? Store bought sweaters don’t have this issue?! Any thoughts? I know you’re out there. I need wisdom people!

Rya loves the sweater (disclaimer: Rob is the family photographer, he is at work. I'm lucky this is even in focus)