I learnt how to knit and crochet at the start of the year and have since developed a real passion for the two things, most evenings I sit down on the sofa with one of (my many) projects. I find it so fun relaxing and there is so better feeling than completely something that you have made yourself. Knitting has long been associated with old ladies but these days it has definitely taken on a new status, one that’s made it ‘cool’ and something that young people are more than happy to spend their time doing. At 31 I’m not calling myself one of those ‘young people’ by the way, I don’t think I fit into that category any longer. SOB.
Until about 6 weeks ago I had only attempted fairly small projects but when We Are Knitters contacted me about reviewing on of their kits I got all excited about the prospect of knitting a jumper as it was something I really wanted to try. I was a bit worried about whether it would be a bit difficult for me given that I had only made little dolls before but the kits come in different levels so I decided to give one of the beginner level jumpers a go and in the end decided on the Nolita sweater as I loved the chunky look of it.
The kit turned up in a huge brown paper bag that you can use to store your work in progress then use for yarn storage afterwards.
Then the kit comes with everything you need to make your sweater. The pattern is really easy to understand and I didn’t have any problems. You can find video tutorials for every step on the We Are Knitters website, these are so useful and I learnt how to rib stitch, increase stitches and pick up stitches, all skills that I can now carry forward to other projects.
Getting used to the huge 15mm knitting needles took a little while but now I love them and working with such big needles means that you can make a jumper like this really quickly. When I go back to using small needles it feels so much harder, you have to really focus to make sure you don’t go wrong whereas with big ones it’s a lot easier.
One of my worries when knitting is dropping a stitch as I don’t know how to pick it up again but luckily that didn’t happen, there is a video tutorial on how to do it and I’m guessing with chunky yarn like this it would be easier but one thing I love about crochet is how if you go wrong you can just unravel it and start again, I find I’m more relaxed knowing that but once I have successfully fixed dropped stitches I will feel the same way about knitting.
Once I had finished the back section it spurred me on to finish it and after about a week of doing it in the evenings I had all the sections.
Then all I had to do was join them up and pick up stitches to knit the neckline resulting in the finished jumper…
It was such an amazing feeling to create a jumper that you had made yourself and hanging up I’m so pleased with how it looks. Unfortunately the downside is that it looks really silly when I am wearing it which takes me on to the one negative of this kit. In the description it’s described as an oversized jumper which it kind of is but it’s also semi-cropped which means that it looks all kinds of bizarre on me, Mr C actually started laughing when I came in with it on.
It’s like the arms and body are too short but the rest of it is too big. Having looked through the Nolita sweater photos on Instagram I can see that some people have made some adjustments as it does look longer in some of them, I love everything else about the jumper and if the arms and body were longer then it would be perfect so I would love to give it another go.
I think in terms of making the patterns work a bit better there should be different sized patterns available, for instance S / M / L. To be honest I was expecting to see some kind of variation on the pattern for people wanting a bigger size, even something like ‘for an extra large jumper purchase an extra ball of wool and work this many extra rows in’.
And I think in the case of this jumper maybe an option like ‘for a longer jumper work this many rows in’.
Overall I’m impressed though and I’ve already got my eye on a cushion kit as well as a hat kit that I am about to order.
If you are a knitter and love chunky wool then I would definitely suggest you go take a look because I promise you there will be things you fall in love with. And until the 1st of January you can get 15% off by using the code – LETSDOSOMETHINGWAKY
My advice would just be to measure things up against you as you are going to see if it’s going to work when you put it on, I mean that might be common sense to most knitters but as it was my first attempt at a jumper I just followed the pattern word for word. As a first attempt though I’m pretty pleased with myself!
Thanks to We Are Knitters for sending me this kit.
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