Blue CIC Gansey Done

Pattern: Jerod's Gansey from Knitting Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel

Size: 24 inch diameter. Read sizing comments below.

Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes Bulky. Took 3.5 skeins, about 480 yards.

Color: Sky

Needles: Addi Turbo #7

Gauge: 4.5 stitches/inch, 6 rows/inch in stockinette

I didn't follow the pattern exactly. For this size the pattern body width is 12.5 inches and the pattern total length is 11.25 inches. For maximum warmth in CIC sweaters, I like the body length to equal or sometimes exceed the width.

To make that happen, I didn't omit the third stitch pattern from the bottom as the pattern directed for this size. That meant I had to recalculate when to start the sleeve gusset and front neck dip.

The resulting sweater in the picture is 14 inches long. Hopefully there won't be any little back or tummy skin peeking out the sweater bottom.

For those of you who don't like to do sweater math, the easiest, safest way to make one of these little ganseys longer is to knit more of the stockinette that's right above the bottom ribbing.

If I had added an inch or two of stockinette to the stockinette band, I could have followed the rest of the pattern exactly and still ended up with a longer, warmer sweater. But, it would have been missing that pretty arrow stitch pattern running from gusset to gusset.

I'm loving the no-seam, interesting stitch patterns of the gansey patterns in Knitting Ganseys. The first three months of 2007 the CIC_Knit List will be concentrating on knitting sweaters for the older children and I plan to have fun making a few more ganseys from this book using the larger sizes.

This is the sixth sweater I've finished for the September, October, November CIC_Knit List sweater and vest challenge. I'd like to knit a few more, but Christmas is sneaking up on me.

More on Christmas knitting in a future post.