I came across Laine magazine quite soon after I started knitting and fell in love with this pattern immediately. It took me a while to buy the magazine with this pattern in, but it was the main reason for the purchase to be fair. I was a bit disappointed to find that it was knit in pieces and seamed together (not a fan of purling) but eventually found a way to get round that for most of the sweater.
Yarn
The yarn I used is from Knit Crate. I don't maintain a monthly subscription but do dip in when I see something I like the look of. In the summer the Membership crate featured this DK weight blend of 85% Merino and 15% silk. Each crate contained two 100g skeins (approx 300 yards/274m) for $24.99, including shipping and the other little bits that they put in the crates. I messaged the team and arranged for two crates to give me the 1200 yards that I needed for this pattern, so in total it cost about £35, which I felt was good value. This blend has made for a very comfortable sweater - seriously, it feels amazing. Not woolly, more of a smooth feel, and definitely warm.
If you sign up in any month, you get the crate for that month delivered and you can cancel at any time. Knitcrate also have a feature where you can select your colour vibe - I tend towards the 'all natural', which in this case was the 'Taupily' colourway. They let you know when the window is open for changing our colour vibe, or you can always go for the surprise, which is how the crates used to operate, where you can be sent any of the colours available that month.
I had about 10g left over at the end of this project, so you can imagine I was a little concerned that I wouldn't have enough to finish it. It's not like I could easily get hold of more and my row gauge was tighter than the pattern specified which meant that I was knitting more than expected. Thankfully, I just about managed. This is my first DK weight project and I am a fan - it's so much faster than fingering weight and looks just as good.
Pattern and Instructions
This pattern is only available in Issue 5 of Laine magazine, which costs about £20. They have stopped publishing new issues but there are 9 available still. They have a Nordic influence and are photographed beautifully - I love looking through them and reading the articles as much as I want them for the patterns they include. Instructions are fairly limited though as they are all standardised into the same basic format. Although the patterns themselves are not necessarily advanced, because they are in this format they aren't as accessible for beginners (in my opinion, as a newbie). I still managed to follow along easily enough, but if it had been my first sweater, I might have found it trickier.
The Nutkin is designed as a bottom up sweater, knit in pieces and seamed together. There is interest in the side panels and I was particularly drawn to the stitching detail at the cuffs and hem. The neckband is folded over and stitched down which makes it extra cosy as well as giving a nice finish. It was the first time I had used an alternating cable cast on, which was simpler than I thought it would be and I like how it looks too.
I knit the Medium size, with the suggested needles. I didn't make row gauge but adapted for this as I went. When the sweater was blocked, the length increased slightly, but not a great deal, and certainly more than the width did. It's a good fit and came out pretty much bang on the intended measurements.
The main alteration I made was to knit this in the round. There is no way I was going to do all that purling. The pattern includes 1 extra stitch at the end of each row so that the pieces can be seamed together so I left this out whilst I was knitting in the round. Any WS instructions were reversed for knitting on the RS (so purls became knits etc). This meant that I could knit away in stockinette right up until the armholes once the side panels had been completed.
I made an error counting when casting on, so I didn't do the decreases in the body. When I got to the armholes, I needed to stop knitting in the round and include the extra stitches for seaming instead (which I fudged in when casting off for shaping the arm hole). I then followed the instructions as written for the front and back bodice panels (so, yeah, purling, but not as much as it would have been otherwise). The shoulders are shaped using German short rows, which was another new to me technique that I had to look up (Very Pink knits have great tutorials on You Tube). It's a really good alternative to shaping short rows using the wrap and turn technique - I'll be using it instead in future because it has a much cleaner finish.
The sleeves were also knit in the round, switching to being knit flat when the sleeve head needed shaping. I added in an a total of 5 extra rows spread across the sleeve head shaping to compensate for my tight row gauge. There probably is a way that you can join the sleeves on at the armholes and keep on knitting in the round, but I was happy enough with what I had managed thus far,
It took me about 6 weeks to knit this (it wasn't my only project on the go) which is a lot faster than my other sweaters, probably due to the fact that it is in DK weight. I'm inspired to try out more, but need to work through my huge stash first!
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