Knitting Today: Arne and Carlos Advent Mini Nordic Sweaters

 Last year Arne Nerjordet and Carlos Zachrison who are Norwegian (well, Carlos is formerly Swedish) knitting designers put up a wonderful project:  Mini Nordic Sweaters for an Advent calendar.  I knew I could not do that for an Advent calendar but wanted to knit them nevertheless.

What they actually turn out to be are little sweater bags!  The bottom of the sweater is cast on with a Turkish cast on so the ribbing is closed, thereby making a darling little bag to fill with treats.

When I was thinking about making these little guys it occurred to me that there are 24 people in our "immediate" family. SO...I knit one of these for each of them.  Every person will receive one of these mini sweaters with the number of their place in the family. Dear One is number one, I am number two and so forth down to our great grandson who is number 24.  This makes me smile.

It took me six months to get them completed.

Here is a look at the little sweaters in a storage drawer unit in the workroom.  Now comes the part of identifying the recipient and putting them in their Christmas packaging.  As I have said, this makes me so happy with these.  

No, they are definitely not perfect and things have changed since the beginning.  Arne and Carlos had a design on the sleeves as well as front and back of each body.  I thought they looked clutter-y so after the first seven I knit the sleeves plain as you can see in the picture. 

Arne and Carlos designed some yarn called Norwegian Yarn, I think by Rowan but it was prohibitively expensive. At least for us.  I found some similar weight yarn on Knit Picks and matched the colors as closely as I could.  Most of them came out pretty nicely colored but some are less pleasing.  Also, there are multiple errors but I am comfortable with the ones in the finished product.  The mistakes I could not abide I tore out and re-knitted.

So, on to the next project.  Since completing these sweaters I have finished a couple pairs of socks. I STILL have not gotten the workroom together but today did manage to clear off a portion of the desk. Again....