Book Review: Great Knit Sweaters for Guys Big & Small

I have never knit a sweater for my husband. When we first got together — almost 20 years ago! — he didn’t really ever wear sweaters, and while he does now, he tends toward lightweight, fine-gauge garments that would be difficult to replicate in hand-knitting.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want to knit him sweaters. As a knitter, they’re one of the best expressions of love we have. But it’s a lot of work to knit for an adult male and then have them not wear whatever we made because they don’t like it for some reason.

Andrea Sanchez started designing because she wanted to knit the perfect little sweater for her son and couldn’t find the kind of pattern she wanted. She also knits for her husband and brother, and has collected a dozen sweater patterns, all sized from a child’s size 2 to adult XXL, in her book Great Knit Sweaters for Guys Big & Small.

As you might expect in a book for guys, the patterns are mostly pretty straightforward, with simple textured stitch patterns, cables or other design elements that make them a little more special. There are two patterns with colorwork — one a color-blocked baseball-style shirt and the other a circular-yoked sweater — and there are pullovers, cardigans, a vest and a henley.

It’s nice to be able to see what the sweaters look like on both little guys and adults (her family members and a friend are the models) and worked in different colors.

And, of course, you can knit these projects for yourself or any little girl in your life if you don’t have guys you want to knit for.

I like the simple Weekend Pullover, a mostly Stockinette raglan with panels of Garter Stitch on the sides and at the top back; Ridgewood, another raglan with a textured Garter Rib on the body; the Towpath Henley, with a pretty waffle weave stitch that I’d like to knit for everyone in my family; and the Cascade Locks Jacket, a perfect little grandpa sweater. You can check out all the projects on Ravelry.

This book is a great choice if you have both little guys and men you like to knit for. These patterns look like fun to knit and to wear, and they aren’t too fussy for the particular guys out there but will still be fun to knit.

Book specifications: 80 pages, paperback, 12 patterns. Stackpole Books, published January 2016. Suggested retail $16.95.

Looking for more knitting patterns for knitted Cardigans? Check out these Knitting patterns we found on Etsy.

Specific to knitters, you can join our Knitting Patterns Only group to get, well, knitting patterns, ask questions and gain inspiration for what to knit next.

Looking for Yarn online? Check out Lionbrand our preferred source for purchasing yarn online.

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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