Here’s what I’ve been up to lately.
Remember this picture?
This is my Marius sweater.
If you’re not familiar, Marius is an iconic traditional Norwegian sweater pattern owned by Sandnes Garn. It features a bold red, white, and blue design inspired by the Norwegian flag, with crosses and diamonds throughout. You can check it out on their website here: https://www.sandnes-garn.com/2410-02
Fun fact: I’m not Norwegian, but I love the design, so here we are.
This was my very first colorwork sweater, knit many years ago in Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok.
It’s beautiful, but if you’ve been around for a while, you might remember that this sweater taught me a very important lesson about row gauge (long story short: once I was done working the colorwork the first time, the sweater was about 12 inches too long before splitting for the sleeves... It looked like a poncho!).
I frogged this thing more times than I wish to admit. I was using a different yarn weight than the pattern called for, and decided to knit it top down in the round instead of in pieces. Between those choices, there were many mistakes, many lessons, and plenty of material for other articles I’ve written since.
Fast forward a few years. I still love my original Marius, but it’s been worn a lot. The fabric has started to felt and pill in spots. There’s also the long stitch repeat in the XO colorwork chart that happened right after the split for the sleeves... Because of that, my sleeves had to be either slightly too tight or way too loose, with absolutely no middle ground. They’re wearable, but let’s call them “enthusiastically snug” for my big guns.
So I decided it was time to knit a new Marius.
This time, I cast on using sport-weight yarn instead of worsted-weight. I chose Miss Babs Laurel Falls in Georgian Bay (a navy teal), Poinsettia (a deep red), and Naked (a natural white).
I cast on 104 stitches and worked a 1x1 rib. Then I worked back and forth using short rows to raise the back neck, which is how I prefer my sweaters these days. I really need to share this technique with you all at some point, it's awesome. After that, I jumped right into the colorwork.
And look at it. Even unblocked, it’s pretty gorgeous, right?
So far, I’ve been really happy with the results. Using sport-weight yarn allowed me to work the long XO stitch repeat into the yoke, which means I don’t have to deal with the long repeat math in the sleeves later. Woo Woot!
Everything sounds perfect so far… right?
Well, even experienced knitters mess up sometimes. And here’s my mistake.
I didn’t buy enough yarn in Georgian Bay.
Insert embarrassed emoji here.
I know. I KNOW. Somewhere between adding skeins to my cart and checking out, my brain checked out. Did I convince myself it would magically be enough? Possibly. Was I overly optimistic and naive? Absolutely. Holiday shopping exhaustion and being distracted by my kids at checkout might have been involved.
Here's the reality: I’ve knit about half the body and have roughly 1.3 skeins left to finish the body and knit both sleeves. For reference, that’s usually what I need just for the sleeves alone. And no, before you ask, I’m not interested in a cropped sweater.
My dream for this garment was a long, almost tunic-length sweater with sleeves that reach all the way to my fingertips. You know the kind...
How did I make such a mistake? I honestly don’t know. But if you’ve ever played yarn chicken and lost, you’re in good company. It happens to the best of us. Right? Right?
I reached out to Miss Babs, and I’m hopeful they’ll be able to dye more skeins for me... Fingers crossed. Until then, this sweater is officially in timeout.
Bad, bad Marius.
Stay tuned for updates…
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