I finally wrote out my pattern for Lauralund (same old picture). Lauralund is a liberal takeoff of Klaralund, which has been extremely popular on the blogs. I have changed it significantly in that it’s now a cardigan, knit with bulky weight, there is no garter stitch anywhere, and the ONLY factors I used to determine size were a tape measure and my body. That being said, I would HIGHLY recommend doing the same before knitting your own. Even if you want a 42 inch bust sweater like mine, you should measure your shoulders. I have very tall shoulders (remember the bra fitting posts?), and the shoulder height will make a huge difference in how this sweater fits.

Yarn– Lopi wool purchased out of a forgotten warehouse. It’s old, hairy, and fabulous. But it’s still Lopi. And I “think” I used 8, 3.5 oz balls of it. Sorry about that.
Needles– size 10 1/2 for sweater, and double points for i-cord button loops. On the sweater use straits or circular, but it’s flat knitting. A 24 or 36 inch circ would be fine
Gauge– 12 stitches per 4 inches. This is the BLOCKED gauge. At this gauge, my fabric drapes beautifully. And it draped better after being blocked.
Other– groovy buttons. I used 2 toggle style bamboo buttons.

Finished measurements-

42 inch bust
16 1/2 inches from armpit to bottom
18 inches from armpit to sleeve cuff
Overall length is 26 inches when laid flat, and subjective on body. I was getting about 28 inches from shoulder to bottom of sweater.

Lauralund is comprised of 5 large rectangles with no shaping whatsoever. Two rectangles make up the front (because it’s a cardi, one on each side), one rectangle is the back, and the sleeves are freaky long to go up over the shoulders and make the neckline. You sew the top sides of the sleeves to the fronts and back to make the top part of the sweater. Make sense? If not, read the seaming instructions.

Because the construction is so simple, it will be very easy to customize her to your size. Just get a good, BLOCKED gauge swatch, measure yourself, and go from there. I would suggest reading all of my notes before beginning your sweater.

PATTERN FOR LAURALUND

Fronts- make 2

-cast on 33 stitches
-work 4 rows in 1×1 seed stitch
-switch to stockinette stitch, leaving 3 stitches on one side in seed stitch as a faux button band. Work until entire piece measures 15 inches.
-Resume seed stitch for 12-13 rows, bind off in seed stitch

Back- make 1

-Cast on 60 stitches
-work 4 rows in seed stitch
-switch to stockinette stitch and work until entire piece measures 15 inches
-resume seed stitch for 12-13 rows
-bind off in seed stitch

Sleeves- make 2

(starting at top of sleeve)
-cast on 52 stitches
-work 3 rows in seed stitch
-work in stockinette until entire piece measures 25 inches
-work 21 rows in seed stitch
-bind off in seed stitch

Block all pieces. Seam, seam, seam!

Ok, ok. Lay out a front, vertically. Take one of the sleeves and lay it horizontally across the top, bound off edge of the front. Line up the top of the sleeve to the inside edge (the faux button band) of the front to make a straight line all the way down the front of the sweater. Seam the side of the sleeve to the top of the front. Do the same for the other side. Lay out the back and measure and mark the top center. Sew the other side of the sleeves to the back as you did for the front. Now seam up the sides, through the armpit, and down the sleeves to the cuff.

Then make two 3 stitch i-cords to loop around buttons. Sew the loops to one side and the buttons to the other.

Optional- sew up 5 or so inches of the sleeves at the back to close it. Read my notes for further discussion.

Notes- here’s where I ramble…

First of all, I will tell you again to measure your shoulders. Don’t worry about getting it exact. The sweater is knit in rectangles, so draw a line around your body at the armpits. Between your neck and your shoulder, measure (if you’re lucky, have someone else measure) from the armpit line in the front, to the armpit line in the back. That is how wide you want your sleeves to be. You don’t want them too wide, or the whole thing will look saggy. Saggy is NOT what we’re going for.

I know that bulky yarn sweaters aren’t supposed to be tight fitting, but I think this sweater needs to be snug to look right. It needs to be snug on the bust. The arms are very loose, and the front hangs open, so the bust needs to be the spot that fits. My bust with bra and t-shirt measures 48 inches. My Lauralund measures 21 inches wide when laid flat (or 42 inches around). It is admittedly a bit too small, but not by much. If it were 48 inches around, it wouldn’t fit as well. The first time I made her, she was WAY too big, and it looked awful.

As for the sleeves… I love loooooong sleeves. Lauralund has them. I cast on for the sleeves a the top (or neckline) because that way, I can continue knitting the sleeves until I think they’re long enough even after they’re seamed or pinned onto the sweater. It works out great.

Next, in the Klaralund pattern, you are supposed to sew up 5 or so inches of the sleeves to close up the back. This can be dangerous. I don’t remember where I read it, I think it was on Purlygirls, but someone was talking to the pattern writer and she said that the “chest drooping” problem that a lot of people were having with Klaralund was because of the sewing up of the back. The sweater in the picture of the pattern isn’t sewn that way, they added that instruction later. The first time I knit Lauralund, when she was much, much bigger and looked awful, I noticed a huge difference in how it fit before and after the back was sewn. Tight like mine is now, it isn’t as noticeable, but if it were looser, I think I’d rip out the seam up the back. FYI.

There she is. Thank you for waiting so patiently. I know some of you have been a bit anxious. And hopefully, I didn’t leave out anything vital.

I know today is knit-along day. I really wanted to do some blog reading this week to look for updates, but I’ve been very busy. This week was quite eventful. Not to mention the wrapping up of eventful things that happened LAST week. So I’d love to give our knit-along day the attention it deserves on Monday. Is that ok with everyone? Feel free to post anything you’d like to today’s post. That way, I can feature you on Monday. Sound good?