EZ for the Whole Family

Here are my favorite guniea pigs for knitwear- son Gabriel in Cousin NALGAR, my mom in her Ribwarmer, and son Nikolai in another Ribwarmer.

Nikolai's Ribwarmer was straight from the book, just gague-ed down for a 4 year old. After it was finished and he tried it on we discovered that EZ must have written the design for adults whose shoulders are broader than their bellies. Rather than re-knit the entire thing, I ended up cutting 2 inches off each shoulder seam. Grr. More on that and a modified-for-kids version on my blog.


Gabriel's Cousin NALGAR turned out fantastic, considering the rough start it had. I ripped out everything but 5 inches of the body and started over. Instead of color blocks I started striping. Alternating the wiry brown yarn and the soft teal yarn made the fabric much more pliable and friendly. For the increases I did all the Make 1s rather loosely and that helped the sleeves go the right direction. It didn't come out perfect- I think I knit the neck 3 times and each sleeve twice- but with some strategic hand felting in the wash it came out beautifully. I think this is my favorite sweater so far. Very cute and soft and warm, with growing room!

Cousin NAGLAR

This is another design from Knitting Workshop, one of EZ's seven (SEVEN!) options for a seamless yoke/shoulder. If you're not familiar with the pattern it's kind of hard to explain. You knit up to the armpits and start increasing at 4 raglan points. When you have enough sts you knit the sleeves down, graft the shoulders, and knit up the neck. Bizarre but brilliant.

This is a great design for babies and young kids because it's a no-steek, no extra math, open-shoulder pullover. Graft one shoulder, put a button band on the other, and poof! A sweater to fit over any kid's head. LOVE IT! Here we are, one shoulder grafted, the rest of the sts waiting for their neck treatment.
But I have a small problem. It's waving at me.
I'm not sure why the sleeves are angling UP. I can think of 2 possible reasons
1. I missed a few increases on the body, but not the sleeves.
2. My yarn is extremely over-spun. I inherited a sackful of homespun from my aunt and it's really wiry. I've never knit with anything like this before and I'm not sure how it effects the knitting, and how much it might relax in the wash.

Yuck, huh? I'm trying to use it up to make stash space.

Should I frog and try some other yarn?
Should I frog and try to fix the sleeves?
Would decreasing on the top of the sleeve help?
If anyone else has ever knit this design, please give me your input! I could use all the help I can get! Thanks!

PS: Thank you all for your wonderful comments about the Ribwarmer. My mom got it for her birthday today and hasn't taken it off yet! For the curious, here is a picture of the one-piece-back with the double mitre.

Ribwarmer

Here is the Ribwarmer from Knitting Workshop. I made several modifications to the pattern- some things worked well, some worried me exceedingly until they all blocked out.
Knowing this was being made for a small person I changed the gauge from 4 sts/in to 5, but I did the math and kept the length specs the same as EZ's original. Unblocked it was too small, but garter stitch is wonderfully obliging and it blocked to the size I wanted.

I also made did the short row miters much square-er than EZ calls for. On the fronts she says go down to 15 sts then start going back up. It wasn't laying flat at all so I ended up going all the way down to 5 sts before I started going back up. On the back miters I went down to 2 sts. Even these were curling up, but again, blocking saved the day.

I wanted to make the back all in one piece so I picked up stitches from my cast on edge and knitted the second half directly onto the first. When the first half of the back miters were both finished I joined everything and worked back over 2 sets of short rows at the same time. I think Meg includes instructions for something like this in the Spun Out pattern, but I don't have that so I just did what made sense to me.
I intended to put on an I-cord border but I procrastinated and ran out of time. I decided to just crochet a border on instead (sorry EZ!), which took less than an hour. I'll try an I-cord next time.
The yarn is Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool- 65% wool, 35% silk- one strand each of plum and rust held together on sz. 6 needles. Heavenly soft. I hope the recipient likes it!