Himalaya Everyday Viking Jumper

A seemingly simple knit with Everyday Viking anti-pilling yarn from Himalaya. The pattern was lost in translation so it became a much more complicated knitting project than I anticipated.

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Yarn and Needles

I’ve previously worked with Himalaya ant-pilling yarn and been massively impressed with the near total lack of bobbling. There’s the tiniest bit of bobbling under the arms and that’s it. The little pills are really easy to pull off leaving the knitting nice and smooth underneath.

I wanted a lightweight jumper for autumn and spring or to layer with a big thick sweater for winter. But more importantly I wanted something smart that would stand up to regular wearing. I was in the mood for an easy knitting project that I could do without much thought, I’d just finished a huge complex traditional Aran sweater and I need a break!

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Knitting Pattern

I fell in love with this design as soon as I saw it. It looks really complicated but it’s just self patterning yarn. So the whole jumper is worked in stockinette stitch, easy-peasy right? Oh I was so wrong.

I figured I could just use any old basic sweater pattern but when I started engaging my brain I realised that any shaping in the waist would change the pattern. If I knitted in the round as I usually like to the pattern would be very, very narrow on the front and back making it look huge on the sleeves.

It was the sleeves that really stumped me. A raglan sleeve would look very silly, with an awkward and obvious break in the pattern right across the chest. But a set in sleeve involves quite a lot of shoulder shaping which would have a similar effect on the pattern, albeit less severe.

So I set about hunting down the original pattern. I’m happy with how it looks so I figured I might as well follow the actual destructions. I think this might actually be the first time in my entire knitter life that I have actually used the recommended yarn with a pattern. It feels so weird!!

The original pattern proved to be highly elusive! I’m pretty sure it was originally published by Himalaya in one of their pattern books / magazines. But I can’t seem to find a digital copy. I only managed to track down an image of the cover.

Eventually I found a really poor quality image of the knitting pattern in terrible English. I decided to use this as a starting point and hope that I could figure it out as I went along.

So I cracked open the ball band . . . only to find the knitting pattern on the inside of the ball band doh!!

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Knitting Up

It’s obviously been translated from Turkish (I think) by someone who doesn’t knit. Lot’s of words have been poorly translated, loop instead of stitch for example.

It’s a simple pattern and it’s easy to knit but translating the pattern required all of my knitting knowledge. I think I even had to turn to some very old sweater knitting books to figure out what on earth they were doing with the shoulders!!

Once I’d got my head around the pattern it was a very simple knit. Nice and mindless exactly what I was looking for.

The most complicated part was joining yarns midway through a piece. I assumed each ball would be identical, so the pattern would be at the same point at the beginning of each ball. Oh that would have been too easy!!

Each time I joined a new length of yarn I had to unravel the yarn until I found the right point in the pattern. Each time I looked for the place where the solid green and solid grey shades meet. This worked pretty well, I don’t think you could tell where the joins are.

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Finishing

I’m trying to step up my crafting game and improve my skills. I’m mostly self taught and have a terrible habit of thinking “I can do that” and diving right on in. I usually get the job done but I lot of my techniques lack finesse.

I took advantage of a special offer on Craftsy membership and so far I’m really enjoying learning new skills and improving my techniques.

With this sweater I endeavoured to improve my seaming skills. I followed Seaming Handknits with Chris Bylsma. I’m so pleased with the improvements in my seaming skills.

If I’d have thought to match the patterns across the back and front pieces you’d barely be able to see the seam. I’m so sticking chuffed with that!

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Garment Fit

Unfortunately the pattern only comes in one size, small to medium. I’d typically be more like a medium – large but the yarn is nice an stretchy and I was looking for a more fitted jumper. I may have attempted to add some extra ease on the sides but I only had 5 balls. I figured one ball for the back, one for the front and another one for each sleeve plus one spare ball. So I followed the knitting pattern without any alterations.

I did have one full ball left over so I could have added the extra ease. But as it turned out, it’s a nice fit without it.

Weirdly it’s the length that is too short. I’m short so I usually have to shorten sleeves. Weirdly the sleeves are too short for me. They sit a good couple of inches up my wrist,

I could see that the sweater is quite short, it sit’s right on the model’s waist. I prefer my sweaters to be a little lower than that so I didn’t adjust the length at all, assuming my short stature would result in the length I prefer. It has knitted up too short for my taste but I did err on the short size rather than risk running out of yarn.

I find the sleeve seam too tight. I suspect it’s just that the sweater is a bit on the small side. If I manage to loose a little weight it’ll fit me much better. Is that enough motivation I wonder?!?!

With hindsight I’d have used the extra ball to add some extra length to the sleeves as well as the waist. But it’s perfectly wearable without it.

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