FO Friday: The Fibonacci Pullover

The Fibonacci Pullover is the first step I have taken into designing my own knitwear.  Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Brook’s Classic Pullover pattern from The Opinionated Knitter was an excellent place to start because it gave me the experience of measuring a body and creating a sweater from the gauge I got out of those measurements.  Also, being plain stockinette stitch, it leaves room for cables and modifications.

I took on the challenge of designing a cable that would work with the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, and to make it a larger cable, used the value of 8 as the base number.  The cable turned out rather well, and was easy and enjoyable to knit.

I decided to place the cable in the front of the sweater where it’s beginning synchronistically lines up with the heart centre of the his chest. This cable was a little bit longer, but not long enough to include a complete amount of purl stitches for the next number in the sequence. So, I decided to continue purling all the way around his neck line, giving the rolled hem a place to rest and finishing the number in the sequence at the same time.  Then, I decided to balance the sweater by doing one slightly shorter cable on the outside of each arm.  The hubster is eager to greet the person who recognizes the symbolism of the cables on his sweater.

The shoulder decreases didn’t work when I tried to do the right under the shoulder bones.  I ended up with a bunch of extra fabric, like little wings.  So, I ripped it back and did the decreases starting three inches above armpit instead of two, and right over the armpits.  Worked like a charm.  Tight enough, but with enough space to reach and move.

As for the seemless bit, I loved it.  Grafting the armpits was so satisfying, and you can’t even tell!  The only thing is, the gauge I knit was so tight that it made my hands a bit sore to knit on circulars.  If it wasn’t for that, I might never knit flat again!

So, there you have it, the Fibonacci Pullover

Yarn: Cascades Ecological Wool in the 8025 shade/colourway, just over three skeins.
Needles: 3.5 mm needles (a little bit small in my opinion, the sweater is rather stiff but we’ll see how it washes up)
Size: 44″ chest (cast on 184 stitches)

Merry Christmas my love!

* One issue with adding the bottom band, post torso, is that it seems to fold up on itself. I don’t know if this is because he is sitting in a wheelchair all the time, or if it is because there is a seam there and it needs to be blocked straight (hubster maintains that his body heat will block it, and there is no need to wait any longer) If you have an answer… send a signal!