Anders Sweater and Two At a Time Sleeves

First of all, I hope my fellow US readers had a nice Thanksgiving Day. I picked up food from my parents, so I at least got to see them briefly, and we went for a very short walk outside. Then we had a Zoom chat with my sister as we munched on our appetizers. I spent the rest of the day knitting and reading – it was actually quite lovely. My family is usually incredibly busy on Thanksgiving, and it was kind of nice just to relax for most of the day. My knitting club gals also had an evening Zoom chat which was really nice.

I finished this project last weekend, but it’s finally dry and has all its finishing done, so now I can share photos! I guess this is a FO Friday!

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• Pattern: Anders (Rav Link) by Sorren Kerr
• Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash Sport in the colors Leake Chelan Heather and and Aran
• Timeline: Cast on 11/15, cast off 11/20
• Buttons from Wooden Buttons Galore on Etsy

I really love how this little pattern turned out! I especially love the top – that partially open top is just so great. And I really dig the Vikkel braid on the neckline and hems. I forgot to get a close up photo before sending it to my sister, but it looks really neat and always fun to learn a new technique. This is also the first time sewing buttons on a knitted item. I took a tip from my knitting friend Kristen and sewed the button to another smaller one so it doesn’t pull the fabric so much.

Speaking of new techniques, I thought I would do a quick tutorial to talk about how I do two at a time sleeves. Mostly cause I thought it would be fun, and when I was picking up the sleeves I had a few free minutes and it was daytime so I could take photos!

Doing sleeves two at a time is pretty easy, it’s basically the same technique you would use for magic loop two at a time socks! It’s definitely a little bit fiddly, especially for the first few rows, but I really like doing sleeves this way. It means you have two identical sleeves (especially nice if you make changes on sleeve length) and you can avoid second sleeve syndrome.

A few tips to make it easier- definitely use the longest cable on your circular needles you’ve got. For these 1 year old sleeves, 42 in was long enough, but if I do two at a time for myself, I’ll use a 47 or even 60 inch cable. I also recommend using two balls of yarn, I always try to pull from the center and the outside at the same time and then instantly regret it!

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1. First, set up both your sleeves so that the armpit is on the right.
2. Pick up stitches about half the stitches on the right. Depending on where you pattern indicates beginning of round, you could also pick up half or all of the underarm stitches here.

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3. Now, pick up half the left stitches. Again, you could pick up underarm stitches here.
4. Turn your sweater over, and pick up the remaining stitches on the left sleeve (now on your right). You will end at the armpit stitches, and could pick those up now. You want to keep cable space between these two sets of stitches as you do in magic loop.

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5. Now, you will pick up the remaining stitches on the right sleeve.
6. For this sweater, because it was a baby sweater with no sleeve decreases, I knit one round and then picked up and knitted the underarm stitches at the end of each sleeve. Again, you could do this a bit differently depending on what your pattern calls for.

And there you have it! You can now work your two sleeves at once! Like I said, the first few rounds are a bit tough when the sleeves are so close to the sweater, but as you go along it goes a lot faster!

I hope you enjoyed this little mini tutorial! I’ll be back on Sunday for my Year of Projects post.