A few months ago, I went to close family members asking if they had any knit or crochet needs. My mom asked me to make her a fisherman's sweater, only she didn't want a pullover. I guess you could say she wanted a cardigan with cables on it.
We searched for one that met her specifications- cables, no tight waistband, crew neck, and timeless. I came up dry until I looked through a magazine my husband bought for me about a year back: "The Unofficial Harry Potter Knits." I love this collection of patterns!!! I haven't yet completed any, but I think they are pretty much all fantastic. I love that all the patterns are HP inspired. However, there are only a few that scream, "HEY! I'M A HARRY POTTER THING!" Most are quite subtle.
I pitched one to my mom. Hagrid's Sweater designed by Anne Podlesak. I've been in love with this one since I first looked through the patterns. I might have semi-forced my mom to agree with my excitement.
My mom picked out the touch of alpaca yarn from Lion Brand. She said she would hand-wash if necessary, but she wasn't thrilled at the prospect. This is where the alterations had to start.
In my, I guess, naivety and unfamiliarity with knitting clothing, I didn't think twice about substituting worsted for the aran yarn called for in the pattern.
My thought process- worsted yarns vary a lot, so it's probably okay. I'll just go up a needle size, no big deal. My google search- are aran and worsted yarn the same?
Unfortunately I didn't have the patience to knit up gauge swatches for all the different elements (two different ribs and the main body pattern). I made half a swatch for the main body pattern, decided to go up one size to an 8, and called it good. I got probably 30 to 40 rows into the back piece, worked from the bottom up, before I actually measured. The total width of the piece was about four and a half inches too small.
Sooooooooo.... I pulled out all the stitches and started over. I decided to do another semi-risky thing. Instead of returning the yarn and getting something else or sizing up my needles so much it became lace, I made a bigger size. I chose to make the size that was about four and a half inches bigger than I wanted. I decided to take the risk because a) I could always just start over again if it really didn't work out, b) the only shaping is at the neck in the front, so I wasn't worried about screwing that up, c) I'm used to flying a little by the seat of my pants when it comes to sewing, so I didn't really worry.
**The neck shaping could be potentially problematic, but I'm also going to be adding a button band which is another inch, inch and a half. That would make up for I think.
Because I don't have rights to share this pattern, I will only be talking about the changes I made to the pattern in order to open up the front to make it a button-up. Really, the only changes are on the front, and they are pretty minimal. I had to pay closer attention to the pattern in a few spots, but other than that it didn't take much effort.
For the front pieces, I had to find how many to cast on. The pattern repeat for the ribbing was 8 stitches with an extra 3 on the ends. So I just did a multiple of 8 and then added three. I got as close as I could to half of what the original CO number was.
The other main difference is that I left one stitch on the inside edge. I split the main cable down the middle and didn't want that edge to be completely wavy. I just knit on the RS and purled on WS. When the pattern had me put the front neck stitches on a stitch holder, I also included this added stitch.
Once all the pieces were blocked and dried and sewed together, I made the button bands. I cast on ten stitches. I worked in 1x1 ribbing with one stitch on the inside edge used to make the edge neat. I used this video tutorial to knit the edge
Then, I just knit until I had it about the length of the front edge. Keeping the stitches live on a needle, I sewed the long side to the front piece of the cardigan, knitting more rows if I needed. I added those stitches to the ones kept on a holder for the front piece. Then, I knit the other one. This one had the button holes. I did some math using this guidance
For the actual button holes, I just did a k2tog and yo. That made a big enough hole for the buttons my mom picked up. Then, I picked up the instructions from the pattern to knit the ribbing for the neck, making sure the knits and purls matched what I had on the button bands. The last step was using the button holes to mark where to sew the buttons. Oh, and of course sewing in all fifty million ends.
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