I finally finished my husband's jumper that I had been promising for quite a while, he kept slipping down the list as I knit jumpers for my sons and now for my grandson. Finally, he made it to the top of the list. Not that he doesn't have any handknit jumpers by me, I have done a number over the years.
I finally found a jumper I was happy with and he seemed to like. He did ask for a jumper with a zip, but I managed to dissuade him of that. From one of my books 'Vogue Men's Knits' by Christina Probert. They are re-imaginings of earlier Vogue Knitting patterns, published in 1985.
The pattern I selected was from 1934, the Knitted Shirt-style sweater. Unfortunately, it had a picture of the current version, but not the 1934 original, which many of the other sweaters did have.I selected Bendigo Woollen Mills 5ply Classic in the colour Broadleaf. This did mean that I needed to swatch and recalculate the pattern. The switch from 30sts to 10cm to 26sts to 10cm didn't prove too problematic and I managed to get the fit fairly correct and the finish to his specifications.
The pattern itself showed a slightly fancy rib, but I found the inside much more interesting. I kept going and finally got to the collar, which I decided to knit directly onto the sewn up jumper. Somewhere in that process I had a brain fade and decided that the inside was the right side and pulled the jumper apart and re-sewed it up again, only to get to the collar again to discover that the old right side was the correct right side!
I did like the new reversed jumper and decided to do the collar correctly to give a nice contrast. Found some wooden buttons in my stash, and, voila....it's finished.
still have to steam the jumper, but as it's 37℃ top today, I'll leave it for another day.