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things i learned--the avastish pullover
I recently finished my father's birthday present--a pullover based on the Avast cardigan pattern available in the Fall 2006 issue of Knitty. Before Christmas, I followed the same pattern pretty closely, making the cardigan for my brother (the only major change I made was working the sleeves in the round). While I thought Pop would love having a matching sweater to his son's (even though my brother would not be super hip on the idea, he lives a few states away and can deal), he's not much of a cardigan guy. In fact, I think the only sweaters my father has ever willingly worn have been crew neck, stockinette pullovers--usually in red. Fortunately, the one he's worn the most in recent years is starting to look worn, so knitting him up a replacement wasn't totally insane. I found myself a couple cones of Brown Sheep Company's Lamb's Pride Worsted in the color Spice and cast on.
I stitched up the cable band for the bottom of the sweater, but instead of binding it off as a strip, I picked up stitches on the CO side and worked some Kirchiner grafting magic, creating a loop. From there, I picked up stitches along the side as instructed in the pattern, joined in the round, and knat in circles for ages and miles. At one point I thought about inserting some sort of cable detail on the chest, but after making a few attempts, I decided this was tomfoolery of the sort Pop would never willingly wear, and left it simple, easy peasy stockinette.
The sleeves I made exactly as I did for the first Avast--in the round. For about 10 seconds I thought about creating cable bands like at the waist for the wrist, but decided a) they wouldn't be stretchy enough, and b) the repeats wouldn't work out right for the correct circumference. When the math got too convoluted, I decided to stick with the prescribed cuff (though I didn't sew in the hem--the stockinette roll actually looked pretty awesome). I did something slightly smarter in the sleeve join, but I hope I mentioned that earlier when writing about this sweater because I can't remember what it was anymore.
As I worked my way up, each step seemed obvious--body of sweater equals a big tube. Sleeves equal two smaller tubes attached evenly spaced around the circumference. The shoulder decreases fit my brother just fine and he and Pop are very similarly shaped in the shoulderish area--but I was worried about the neckline from pretty early on. While I assumed that I was not the first person to ever create a bottom-up sweater in the round, I had not done so before. For that matter, I had never made a sweater with any sort of shaped neckline before (Tempting? no neck shaping, and a cardigan is totally different). I wrote a little about this after my first attempt, and by following my own directions, I knocked out the perfect neck on only the third or fourth try! To keep my short-row turns bulked up, I did include some crazy version of M1, K2tog/SSK, wrapping, whatnot. No lacework spotted anywhere by the time it was finished. I also spaced the turns by 3 stitches, I think. 
The neck was finished off with a purl row on the RS and then 5 rows of stockinette on smaller needles--just like the arm cuffs. I didn't sew this hem down either, and honestly it wasn't laziness. I liked the more casual look of the rolled hem. When I was all finished, the thing did require quite a lot of blocking--the spirals of stockinette really wanted to lay sideways and I really had to tug the side-seams into hanging the way they should. I'm not sure if this is typical of all-in-one-piece pullover construction, but I thought I would note. After a dunk in the sink and a day or two pinned to a towel on the floor with a fan softly blowing over the top, it was ready for wear.
Overall I am in love with this pattern. I'm almost tempted to make another one (again a cardigan, with A LOT of additional shaping) for myself. The cabled band gives a very simple sweater a lot of interest and charm, and I love the simple method of construction with the band turned on its side and the body of the sweater picked up along the edge. To a novice knitter, it appears that you have done something incredibly difficult (and I thrive on the ohhing and ahhing of my fans). Now if only I had some pictures of my Pop in his sweater to add to this post, all would be perfect. In the meantime, you'll have to look at his blurry back behind my SIL at lunch in San Francisco.
