The Altheda Sweater

It was time to start another sweater project as this would be My Year of Sweaters!  As I was perusing through The Art of the Circular Yokes book that I had borrowed from my local library, I found this pattern: Altheda and instantly fell in love with it.😍  I've always wanted a sweater like this and now I get to make it with my Aarlan Alapac & Silk Yarn  (the perfect yarn I was saving for something like this)!🙌 🎉  And, I knew that I would also be able to use my new knitting ring as well! 😁

I read the pattern, took out my new knitting ring and proceeded to make my sweater.  At first, I wasn't sure if I was doing it right as the neckline look really small (but, I was able to put it over my head so ... 🙌 - thank goodness for top-down knitting!🎉).  Then I proceeded to follow the chart.  It was a bit of a learning curve for me as it was the first time I've ever had to do stranded knitting in which I wasn't just knitting alternating colour rows in the round; instead, I had to figure out how to knit an actual pattern in the round!  But, once I got the hang of reading the pattern and determining what I needed to do (thank goodness for pictures!); got the hang of how to use my knitting ring and how to weave the strands back and forth to "lock" them in, it wasn't too bad:

I finally finished the yoke!

But, it was time to figure out how to make short rows for the "back" of the sweater.  Admittedly, I was stumped so, I put my sweater project to the side for a bit until I was ready to wrap my mind around what needs to be done.  After a small hiatus, I finally got up the courage to try the short rows again; I re-read the instructions and just went for it.  Here's how it turned out:

It worked!🙌  Now, time to finish the body! 😍🎉

Following the instructions for the body of the pattern, I ended up knitting 89 rows for the main body itself and 24 rows for the bottom edge in which I altered to mix in both the light grey and dark grey yarn.  I followed the pattern but alternated the colours to give it a checkered look.  Then I knitted 1 row with the dark grey yarn before using Jenny's Stretchy Bind Off to finish the body.

Then for the sleeves, I knitted 9 rows before starting the decreases as instructed in the pattern; I decreased for a total of 7 times. Then for the cuffs, I did it the same way as the hem of the sweater and knitted 20 rows before binding off.

 

Here's my finished sweater! 🎉😍🙌:

I think the biggest thing I learned with this sweater was the short row shaping.  Granted that it took me quite sometime to wrap my brain around that concept but I'm glad it finally clicked! 

Next up: finishing a sweater I had completed (a while ago) only to completely rip it out to give it a reformation (so it would actually fit me). 🤦🤞🙅🍀