pattern: Olivia‘s Cape by Amy Gunderson

I did really enjoy knitting this, but the finishing work (especially the silk ribbon for the steeks!) was so tedious it languished as a WIP for months. I love the end result :)

She wanted to have an otter sweater, so we used the halibut sweater pattern she recently did as a template and I plotted out an otter on graph paper using the matching dimensions. Thought others would appreciate her work!

Stitched the last stitch on the drive to the hotel. Still need to sew in ends. King sized bed for scale. Pattern is a variation of the Easy Diamonds Blanket (https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/easy-diamonds-blanket) and yarn is Lion Brand Pound of Love in 179E Cascade. (Please reserve judgement on my yarn choice; the recipients are not accustomed to care of natural fibers.)

Hi! A few days ago there was a post asking for help with this cabled/lace butterfly pattern, but the source image was AI so the pattern didn't make sense.

I reverse-engineered a pattern based on the image, and made a pattern for anyone who wants it! It's not a 100% match to the image, but I think I got pretty close.

I can't find the post anymore, so I'm hoping this finds its way to the OP!

Edit- thank you all for your kind words! I didn’t think that this would reach many people, but I’m happy that so many people have loved Steven and little knits. I’m sure I will make another post with his clothes once I have made more. He is one of the brightest parts of my day, and I’m happy I got to share him with you 🥰

I have a habit of hoarding supplies, even when there’s not enough for a full project left over. So I decided that with the left overs of the wearables I make, I will make my cat, Steven, a matching item. He always loves hanging out with me while I craft, and usually burrows himself into what ever I am making, so this seemed like a no brainer

I started working as a professional costumer this month 🥳 These are some pieces I’ve been working on for the past couple of months, not for any particular projects, but just learning how to get better at knitting and grading :)

Three are renditions of other patterns that I’ve previously made and posted in this sub. I have to say that remaking the same patterns has been one of the best ways for me to get better at a ton of stuff. I have found that not only does it force you to think critically about your work, you also learn how to reproduce results, gain confidence with seeing direct improvements and become more detail oriented.

I’ve also found that I really love working with blocks — they are a great tool when working out how to grade patterns or when dealing with tricky vintage patterns :)

Nearly two years ago, I posted my very first knitted sweater here on reddit. Back then, knitting was just a little break from crocheting for me. I didn’t really have a clue which yarn fiber to choose for a sweater or how to make a gauge swatch (still too lazy to make one 😅). And honestly, knitting flat and weaving in ends felt like pure torture. I mean, who actually enjoys weaving in ends after finishing a beautiful sweater?

Anyway, I thought I’d share all of my knitted pieces with you — a total of 25 projects. From my very first one up until now, you can definitely see the progress and the skills I’ve gained over these two years. And now I genuinely enjoy knitting sweaters and can’t imagine quitting this beautiful and joyful hobby.

Without even thinking about all the money I’ve already spent on yarn and many other things. Let’s see what the future will bring for me and my hobby. 🧶✨

P.S. Two of the pieces are crocheted* sweaters.

Pattern-list:
Collage 1/7
Step by Step Sweater by Florence Miller
Step by Step Sweater by Florence Miller
Melange Sweater by PetiteKnit
Halibut Sweater by Caitlin Hunter

Collage 2/7
Novice Slipover Men by PetiteKnit
Hanstholm Sweater by PetiteKnit
Hanstholm Sweater by PetiteKnit
Key Sweater Man by PetiteKnit

Collage 3/7
Campfire Tee by Shalea Taysom
Campfire Tee by Shalea Taysom
Campfire Tee by Shalea Taysom
The Tesserae Jumper by Jessie Darch - crocheted

Collage 4/7
Step by Step Sweater by Florence Miller
Step by Step Sweater by Florence Miller
Halibut Sweater by Caitilin Hunter

Collage 5/7
Weasly Sweater by RitaKhor
Weasly Sweater by RitaKhor
43 Herrenpullover mit Zopf by Lana Grossa
Draping Diamonds Sweater by Dennis Bromley - crocheted

Collage 6/7
Dahlisa Sweater by The Knit Purl Girl
King Salmon by Caitlin Hunter
Loge Sweater by Stine HoelgaardJohansen
Haze Sweater by The Knit Purl Girl

Collage 7/7
Weasly Sweater by RitaKhor

This is a coordinate inspired by fashion from the 50s that I knit. The top has a crossover and all sides have been sewn together so the belt is more just for decoration. The finishing was all all done using single crochet (armhole edges, neckline and top+bottom of the skirt). The skirt has a typical crochet casing with three rows of single crochet.

I think the most significant thing I learned from this project is that I really like putting darts into my knitwear. It's hard to see because of the tweed, but I put two 10 cm deep darts at the back of the skirt. This was done by dividing the back into three sections and knitting each separately after which I seamed them together.

It was a fun project and I'm looking forward to wearing this often in the future :)

It's far from perfect, but it was a good practice. I don't think I'm gonna give it to anybody... It looks too... Homemade.

This is Tin Can Knit’s Simple Sweater pattern. I made the fingering/sport weight version using Hobbii Friends Extra Fine Merino and Friends Kid Silk held together, both in the color Sunflower.

Pics 1-3 are glam shots, of course.

Pic 4 is blocking my sweater once it was finished.

5 is a knitting check in before I put on sleeves.

6 is a fit check before I knit the shawl collar.

7 is my gauge swatch once the yarn was finished drying.

8 is a glam shot of the finished yarn!

9 is the yarn once it’s been plied.

10 is the beginning of plying. (It’s a 3 ply yarn).

11-13 are the process of spinning the singles

14 is a look at what one of the batts I spun from looked like once it was blended and taken off the drum carder

15 is me deciding between blending pink silk or blue silk with the fiber. I chose blue, obviously.

16 is what the clean fiber looked like once it was picked open to make it easier to blend on my drum carder

17 is the fiber now clean and drying in a towel.

18 is an example of what the water looked like after the fiber had been soaking for 24 hours. 🤢

19-20 is what the fiber looked like when it was first sent to me! Completely dirty and raw. From a brown Tunis named Josephine Baker!

For those curious, I started scouring the fiber on 12/18/24 and I finished my sweater on 9/14/25! So this took about 9 months from start to finish.

(Pattern: Hechima Collar Sweater by Noriko Ichikawa!)

A year into dating my partner I attended a local fiber festival with a friend where I found a booth selling German angora. I asked my friend, who'd been teaching me how to spin and weave, if she thought I'd be able to spin it finely enough to use in something for a wedding, and she said she could teach me. She asked if I was getting married and I said not yet, but I knew this was my person. I bought the fiber along with an additional bag of a silk/cashmere blend to blend with it, and it sat in my craft closet for two more years until my partner proposed.

The extent of my spinning experience was a handful of yards of a very low quality wool on a drop spindle. This became an absolute crash course in spinning. At my friends suggestion, I spun the yarn single around a core thread using a tahkli (a type of supported spindle). You could see the improvement with each skein, and while it blocked out well I love that you can see it in the shawl, too. And while I've been knitting for many years, lace is something I've only ever dabbled in. All of this to say: This project was an absolutely insane choice. I had no idea how it would turn out, or if I'd finish it in time. I've never felt more on the edge of oblivion. Everyone I told was both impressed and horrified.

This weekend, after 145 hours of spinning and 226 hours of knitting, I finished it. It's full of mistakes that most people can't see. And it's also so full of love. Evenings spent together watching Dropout and KDramas and the Olympics, and so many episodes from the back catalog of Say Yes to the Dress. The passing of my childhood cat, who chewed on and sat on and grabbed at the yarn as I spun and knit it, whose hair I saved after brushing and added to the fiber so she'll be with me on my wedding day, along with my other two cats. Months of battling tennis elbow. A little over a year and a half later, I finished it, with time to spare. And it's beyond anything I could have even imagined.

Pattern is the Evenstar Shawl by Susan Pandorf.

Yarn is handspun by me: single ply, 50% German angora, 25% cashmere, 25% silk, spun around a silk core thread. Cobweb weight, 100 wraps per inch. I used about 1100 yards.

I was selected to be a sample knitter for my LYS. I got assigned a top down beanie pattern. They are providing the pattern and the yarn, there's 2 weeks to pick up the yarn and pattern, complete and return the project and any leftover yarn, and then I receive a gift card to spend in the shop. I don't know how other shops do it, but sounds fair to me.

Top down isn't my favourite, and the beanie seemed a little too big, I am not a huge fan of this style, but that's not my business. I was perfectly on gauge with the recommended needle size.

I finished the hat, and took it into the shop. Several shop assistants came to check on it, they were excited and kind, this whole sample knitting project is new to this shop. Two of them complemented how even my tension is. One of them tried it on and said it's a little big, so I said, I noticed that too and that my only feedback is that the recommended yarn comes in 50g balls and the beanie needs 53g, so maybe that could be tweaked a little. They were still excited, gave me the gift card and said they will pass the feedback on to the project manager (who wasn't there).

Today I got an email from the PM telling me that they are not going to be working with me anymore but hope that I'll remain a customer (lol, I respect the hustle), but that they are unable to use my hat because the tension is 'so horrible they can't afford to photograph it as their own'. Of course I am not going to argue, they can do whatever they please to do, but I am a bit confused. If that is really the case, I would love to improve my tension.

So my question is,

Tldr: is my tension really bad or are the LYS project manager salty because I commented on the pattern?

Yarn is Lana Grossa Cool Wool Big.

Pattern is: Lana Grossa (Model 04 from Accessoires Nr. 23)

First pic is FO, second is pre blocking.

sweater base design is Cowdray by woolfolk, yarn is Juniper moon farm - patagonia in anthracite, cardinal and sand dollar

I spun a blend of 85% polwarth and 15% silk on my drop spindle, and now I've just finished knitting it into a lace scarf! I sorted the original braid of wool into clean gradient sections to achieve a smoother transition between colors even at a tiny scale and mostly avoid any striping.

Unfortunately, no pattern to be shared, as I was making it up as I went along and wasn't charting anything. I wanted to try out a bunch of different things when knitting this, and I learned a ton by seeing what did and did not work!

Shout out to Fine Shetland Lace by Carol Christiansen, the Shetland Museum and Archive online photo library, and Þríhyrnur og Langsjöl by Sigrídur Halldórsdóttir for serving as major inspirations.

Also, apologies that the full length photo is a little wrinkly - I was too excited to wear it and didn't photograph it from top to bottom before I wore it!

I started this project back in February, and I'm so so delighted to finally have seen it to fruition 💛

----

Fiber base: Firefly Squid 85/15 Polwarth/Silk by Fossil Fibers

Spun on: Bosworth drop spindle, 16g Ailanthus

Pattern: None! Just had fun with different motifs :)

Someone from a knitting discord I know created the spider charts. Then I used the Sweater no. 18 pattern for the actual shape. Used Stitch Fiddle to figure out the placement of the spiders.

The pattern is Sirdar 2148 and is available via the Sirdar website. This pattern was really disappointing to work with lol. The constructions is a pretty simple set in sleeve dress -- the body has no shaping, just a rectangle with armhole shaping and shoulder shaping. The issue I had with this one was the hemming. The pattern tells you to knit a couple of rows of 1 by 1 rib at the bottom of the dress, cuff and neckline which are all to be hemmed at the end. However, when I did this it looked so sloppy :/ I took it all out, replaced the neck and dress with a purl ridge hem and worked 3 rows of single crochet for the sleeves and this solved it. Writing this out, I think they suggested the ribbing because the original yarn was boucle -- way more forgiving than plain yarn (the yarn I used is Soft Donegal from Donegal Yarns). So I'd recommend trying a different finish if you'd like to try this pattern out with yarn that isn’t boucle. Please also note that the "final" measurements that are given for the sizes do not take into account the 4 selvedge stitches that are lost once you seam everything up ;)

This is the Stocking for Rainbows sweater from oShen Knits and Fibers. The pattern is by Vanessa Fleming and the yarn is the old version of the stocking for rainbows kit in oShen fibers’ lace kidsilk. They still have the kit, but it’s in a suri alpaca now. But fortunately I’m not sensitive to mohair and this version is delightfully soft and fuzzy for me. 😁🌈 I didn’t especially love knitting on size 11 US needles, as I’m usually a 8 US and under kind of girl, but I had to have the fuzzy rainbow goodness.

If I were to do it again, I think I would have made the long version of the body and then done fewer stripes for the sleeves, because I’d like the body to be a little less cropped but the sleeves are almost too long. I’m still very happy with it and have been wearing it constantly since it came off the blocking boards.

I hope this makes somebody laugh. Everyone on here is so wonderfully talented, and I …made this. Welp, here was my first finished sock from a few years ago. I kept it to see how much progression I’ve made. It’s still my favorite piece! And yes, I only made 1 sock, not a set, lol!

Pattern: Very V-Neck Raglan by Jessie Maed Designs
Yarn: Loops and Threads Woolike in Navy Blue, held double

My bust is 34G and I normally wear a size L in tops but I knit this in a M and it still has positive ease

Start date 9/1/2020, finish date 8/28/2026. I started this project in the depths of treatment resistant depression, finished it while still a little depressed but functioning. My motivation was really killed by sleeve island, so I really need to figure out how to do sleeves TAAT. But motivation through depression is also so, so difficult. I would knit this during therapy where I’ve been working on action, then motivation- not waiting for motivation to do something but forcing myself to knit and having the motivation follow. Sometimes it worked really well, sometimes it was still a struggle. But it's very true that progress is made one stitch at a time, no matter how long it takes. And I’m so proud of myself that I persevered.

He keeps asking if it’s his turn again yet - knitworthy does not appropriately describe his enthusiasm towards my knits 🤣

The bottom part was blocked, the top one hasn’t yet (it’s self drafted so I was checking what works and unravelling sections multiple times after blocking what I already had).

It is tight around the chest section despite short rows, but that’s on purpose as I’m 3/4 through my weight loss journey (down from 100 to just under 70kg, still need to shed ~10kg before I switch to the maintenance dose of Mounjaro), so I expect that once I reach the goal (which with current pace is likely by end of year) it will fit perfectly.

Also I can’t get over how much faster knitting is when you’re smaller size. And how much more willing I am to make things for myself now that I had a hysterectomy and my diseased watermelon sized uterus isn’t making my stomach bulge out like I’m perpetually pregnant.

In second photo - one of my 3 faithful fluffy companions who donated their hair to this project - I’m grateful for your contributions my lovely feline and canine ladies 🤗

[obligatory: pattern is self drafted, yarn is discontinued unfortunately- I found it in the clearance section of Hobbycraft when I was waiting for the bus after yet another hospital appointment. 85% merino, 15% silk, DK. £2.50 per ball so this top cost me £20 plus labour]

Hi guys! It’s me again, this time with a finished sweater :)

Overall it’s lovely, cuddly, it screams SPRING and it weighs 574 g so it’s not too heavy (if you want to check more stats about different colours, here’s a link to the project – I don’t want to bore everybody with them:

https://www.ravelry.com/projects/CiasteczkaTynki/welcome-to-my-delulu-land)

In the last post, I saw some repeating questions. I tried to reply to everyone, but I wanted to address them here as well.

The techniques: As you guessed, I mostly used intarsia. Since I am still learning and just wanted a challenge in some parts, I decided to carry multiple yarns in the back. It was quicker and produced fewer ends to weave in, but unfortunately, it also made some parts way thicker than others. I can see and feel it in the flowers when comparing them to the plain, simpler background. I also used duplicate stitch and discovered it’s a really fun technique. I highly recommend it for small details or afterthought additions :)

I’ve seen a lot of you were absolutely floored by the number of ends I needed to weave in and even recommended quicker solutions. I roughly counted them and there were around 900 loose ends. That’s a lot, but starting this project I knew it would be a lot of work and I was ready for it. It took around 9 hours to weave them in, but after finishing, it totally changed the drape of the sweater.

"Can you publish a pattern?" – I am not a pattern maker. English is my second language and I don’t feel competent YET with grading patterns (or even writing them). I am not a perfectionist when it comes to knitting, but it’s something different with formal documents (yes, I count patterns as such). I also don’t want to gatekeep something I created if it can give someone else some joy. I plan on tidying up the charts (maybe expanding them for bigger sizes), creating simple instructions, and publishing them (probably for free or like 20 cents) in the future. If anyone has any recommendations, let me know :) I know it will be literally impossible to conduct proper testing for it, it’s a lot of work.

The yarn: It was both a great and a really bad idea to use the one I had in my stash. I bought around 70 balls – all different colours – for around $20, so the sweater was cheap, but it’s also acrylic. I feel like yarn with some fluff would work better in hiding imperfections. The good thing is it already survived a washing and drying cycle perfectly fine.

Overall, it was such a fun ride which started on April 1st and ended on the 30th (so exactly one month). It helped me learn new things and proved that yeah, I can knit whatever I want. I just need more practice (I’ve already drawn and started another project! This time it will be a cardigan with a cloud motif, since I really enjoyed knitting them and I have more to explore with them :D).

Ps. I can't see flower nipples at all 🙂‍↕️

I saw a cute sweater for sale online. The sweater itself did not have good reviews, but I loved the stitch pattern. So I decided to make one myself. I wound up just knitting a vest, and I love how it turned out. I used Plucky Knitter Primo Sport yarn in colorway Haberdasher and KnitPro Symfonie Viva yarn in colorway Party Lights. I did not use a pattern, but I have made quite a few vests in my time so it was easy to make it up as I went.

My daughter’s daycare organized a special Hungry Hungry Caterpillar day. Since I’m a very normal person I decided to knit a special cardigan for the day.