Like nearly every vintage knitter, I participated in By Gum By Golly's Knit for Victory challenge this winter, hosted by the ever inspiring Tasha. And man oh man, do I ever feel victorious after finishing my project!



I chose the Clara sweater, a redesign of the 1940s Victory Jumper, by Rohn Strong. I used Knit Pick's Swish Worsted, a very yummy Merino wool (full Ravelry project page here) in dark red, blue and white. While it's not very Canadiana-patriosm, I'd say that it's still authentic because in the 1940s we were flying a flag that used a Union Jack (plus, that colour combination is my favourite right now, as seen in my last me-made wardrobe projects). Thus the ode to the Monarchy in the title. ;)
For those of you that followed along my knitting progress on Instagram, you'll know that my project was fraught with suspense. I started after Christmas, and quickly knit up the sleeves (I am never knitting sleeves last again). However, as I got halfway through the front, I started running out of the dark blue wool. Hastily I ordered another skein and put the project on hiatus for about a week to wait for the extra yarn to show up. The knit along finished Jan. 31, and I cast off with 24 hours to spare. I had to jet home on a lunch break to take these photos to be counted in the Flickr pool.

Note: for anyone considering to do a striped sweater like this, learn how to weave in your ends as you go without the colour showing through. It saves SO. MUCH. TIME. I'm also very proud of my seaming and stripe matching skills.



I also ran into some issues with the writing of the pattern, as the pattern doesn't account for the increases you make as you knit once you start binding off the armholes. Luckily I was able to contact Rohn and to work out the issue. You certainly can't do that with vintage patterns!

However, because of the counting error I think the neckline is a little wonky. Rohn suggested I have 18 stitches for each shoulder as the pattern originally suggested and bind off a wider collar, but I think next time I would bind in off in the ratio suggested in the original, as I find that the way I did it made a wider, squareish neckline. I'm going to try and block the squareness out of the collar; failing that, I'll go back and make the collar a bit longer, but decrease some stitches to get a rounder neckline.



Also, I did not get the puffy sleeve result. In fact, I had to sew up some of the armpit because the sleeve didn't take up all the armhole. No idea how that happened!



Regardless, this is definitely going to be a wardrobe staple! It's so comfy and not itchy at all, and the wool is a beautiful colour. I am in love with Knit Picks wool, and highly recommend it. All in all, a very successful project that took me only 40 days - hiatus included!