Check Out Judith Durant’s Sweaters for Carousel

The worlds of knitting and Broadway might not mix often, but when they do, the result is pretty cool.

I love this story from the New York Times about the sweaters knit from the musical Carousel by Judith Durant, whose name you might know because she was an editor for Interweave. She was tasked with knitting 13 sweaters for the cast, but she ended up enlisting the aid of other knitters to help her meet the deadline.

The sweaters are made of acrylic so they can be washed daily, and they’re meant to look like the men knit the garments themselves so there are intentional mistakes. They are tight fitting and most feature horizontal stripes.

Durant said she gained 10 pounds and binge watched a lot of TV while working on the sweaters, sometimes working from 6 am until 2 am the next day.

From the results — and the Tony nomination for show’s costume designer — the effort was well worth it.

[Photo: Cody O’Loughlin of the New York Times.]

Next Pattern:

If you’re looking for a sweater knitting pattern that uses up some of your stash and allows you to make just the sweater you want, the Marlina Rib by Shay Johson might be just the thing.

It’s worked with two strands of fingering weight yarn held together to make a DK weight gauge, so you can use the same two yarns throughout or change one or both regularly for an even more colorful look.

The pattern has options to make it either a crewneck or a henley style with buttons, tapered or relaxed sleeves, and a straight hemline or a split hem with buttons (which sounds so cute if you do the henley with split hem and match the buttons on both parts).

It’s also knit from the top down so you can make the body and the sleeves as long as you want. There are 10 sizes available in the pattern, with a chest circumference ranging from 32 to 68 inches, or 81.5 to 172.5 cm. It’s meant to be worn with 4-6 inches/10-15 cm of positive ease at the chest.

The pattern page on Ravelry includes tons of measurements and yardage estimates so you can make sure you’ll get a good fit for your body before you even buy the pattern. Shay also shows a few variations of the sweater so you can see how different options look before you decide how you want to put them together.

The stitch pattern is 1×2 ribbing, which is really easy to do and gives a look almost like fisherman’s rib that’s relaxed and easy to wear.

This sweater looks like a great option for people who are somewhat new to sweater knitting or those who love to have lots of customization options (because it’s like getting multiple sweater patterns in one!).

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern for yourself at Ravelry.

[Photo: Shay Johnson]

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