I Knit This Sweater…from leftover VBS yarn

True sweater weather has come early this year! Where I live in Virginia, it is rare for us to get snow before Christmas. So far, we’ve had two good snow days and another is forecasted tomorrow. We’re not even 12 days into December yet! I tend to get cold easily, but sweaters layered over a white collared shirt help keep me warm (and stylish) in the winter. Vintage or vintage inspired sweaters are my favorite, both in terms of look and warmth.

I made another sweater this year. The yarn was left over from a VBS our church hosted a few years ago. To be clear, I don’t mean cheap craft yarn designed for kids’ projects. In the VBS, one of the stations kids went through was decorated with donated textiles, blankets, yarn skeins, etc. After the event was over, there were a few skeins of these gorgeous green and gold yarns which were a nice quality. I’m always excited about a pretty green!

Because the yarn was limited and my personal preference is for more fitted rather than bulky sweaters, I looked around for a vintage knitting pattern. I chose this pattern from the 1940s. I ended up adapting it a bit, but it was a helpful starting place and a good inspiration for the fit and overall look.

The original pattern instructs you to make the front, back, and two sleeves separately and then seam them together. The sleeves were knit from the wrist up to the shoulder. I made the front and back first and then the sleeves. I liked how the body looked and the ribbing made it both warm and fitted. Unfortunately, I ran out of green yarn about two thirds of the way up the sleeves, so I switched to my secondary color, the gold. I did not like the effect at all…I wore it once just around the house. After that, I knew it was very likely I wouldn’t wear it again.

I really hated that I would not wear it after I had spent so many hours on it! I did the hard thing. I detached the sleeves, unraveled them, stretched out the yarn to get as many kinks out as possible, and searched for other sleeve patterns. I found instructions for knitting a sleeve from the cap of the shoulder down to the wrist, in the round. This meant I could use my green first and make it stretch as far as I possibly could before switching to the gold. The original pattern called for the full sleeve to be ribbed like the lower half of the body. However, my adapted pattern was a simple stockinette stitch which used less yarn to make the green go further. When I ran out of green, I was at the right length that the contrast would look like cuffs. I switched back to ribbing when I got to the gold, to make them look even more intentionally like cuffs.

Now, I love it! I think the time to redo the sleeves was 100% worth the effort. Happy sweater weather!