I Made this Icelandic-ish Knitted Sweater

Look at that happy child for having just finished her Metsänpeitto-sweater. Over the moon and proud.

I really enjoyed this project and was surprised how easy and fast it was. I knitted this along 8 days, and my rough guestimate is that this took me 65 hours to make. Yeah I get obsessed and knit for hours on end. The pattern cost me 7,90€ and the Istex Lettlopi yarn about 53€. I did also purchase some new circular needles but I’m not counting those in.

This was only my second sweater ever, and the first one with a yoke. I think it turned out beautiful, but way longer than what I had intented. I overestimates how long the torso and arms need to be before the yoke. After I got the knit ready, blocked it and let it dry for what felt like an eternity, I finally saw the real proportions of it. You can see the finished knit before blocking on the right hand bottom corner of the collage, take note of how much it relaxed after washing. Blocking is so so important!

Icelandic sweaters are definitely meant to be oversized, they are mostly worn over top of something else, and as outside clothing. The yarn that is traditionally used for this, and which I used too, comes from Icelandic lambs that have (obviously) the perfect kind of wool for harsh conditions. The overcoat is long and thicker, great for braving the wind and moist air, and underneath is a shorter fluffy hair to keep them warm. Those make up an extemely warm yarn, but also quite scrachy so it’s not something most people want to wear without anything underneath. I for sure will be wearing this out over a long sleeve t-shirt in the coming weekend when I’ll be spending time in the autumn nature.

If you, my fellow knitter, fell in love with this sweater too, click here to find the pattern on Raverly.

I learned soooo much while doing this knit,and since I’m a mental case, I’m putting it all to practise immediately by starting another one of these. Different colours, and a lot shorter. Off to the yarn store I go.