Forbrydelsen sweater

I enjoyed watching the first series of The Killing and rashly agreed to make 'The Sweater' for my husband. Authentic yarn was duly ordered from the Faroe Islands, followed by a bit of panic on realising that I would have to create my own pattern for this. Also, my stranded knitting experience had previously been limited to a simple tea cosy, where tension and fit were not that important.

I chose to use a long tailed tubular cast on to give a polished look to the rib edging and was pleased with the way this worked out. The body moved along fairly quickly but I reached a block with the sleeves. This was exacerbated by having to work out a different starting point in the star motif for each repeat as I increased the stitches up the arm. I used the low-tech method of sellotaping repeats of the motif together and using post it notes to keep my place.

I used about three different 'design your own sweater' books plus a large dollop of common sense to figure out the yoke. My previous experience was that the sweater 'recipes' tend to start the neck too low, so I kept knitting in the round for several rows longer than the recipe. I also found that keeping four sections in pattern for the yoke while also handling decreases was very difficult, and ripped back several times.

When my husband tried on the sweater before completion it looked like the arms would be much too long. Oh well, I told him he could fold back the cuffs. I cast off and he tried it on again. The neck was too low for his taste, and so I knit another inch. I had tried a stretchy K2tog cast off the first time, but it didn't seem to make much difference, so went back to a regular cast off. Mistake. Now he couldn't get the sweater over his head. I cast off a third time, using the stretchy cast off again, and sewed up the underams.

Aaahh! It fits! Once the underrms were grafted, the sleeves were perfect, and the neckline was just right. I'm really pleased with how this turned out even though I found it quite a stretch to make. The yarn is really lovely and sheepy, although frankly a bit too rough for my skin. My DH is delighted, and it looks great! One benefit of the terrible weather we have had is that it's still cold enough to wear it.