This is one of my long term projects that I just wanted to get off my Needles. When these types of patterns started showing up I was interested in making one. It looked simple and fast and cozy. What more do you want?

Described as a wrap, shrug, bolero, and even sweater, it is just a large rectangle, either crochet or in this case knitted. When the rectangle is large enough. Just fold it in two, sewing the sides together and pickup around the boarder to do a ribbing.

Easy concept. I picked out a free pattern, The Lion Brand, Speckled Shrug (free pattern here) I always like to look at the finished projects on Ravelry and read the comments everyone has made that knitted the item.  Seems like knitters were split into two camps. The make it smaller and more fitted and Bolero jacket like. The other group was to make it bigger. I noticed that the problem with this shape of this pattern is a baggy bottom after sitting. (like once). I had already made another pattern that was a bolo jacket so opted to make mine fairly large and oversized to make it snuggly for the cold.

It turned out good. I did try to add sleeves, and they really didn’t look good. I wanted a ribbed sleeve. I tried picking up stitches all around and doing a k2p2 pattern, but it looked bad. I also tried to crochet some looser sleeves and didn’t care for those either.

I used 3 skeins of Lion Brand Fisherman’s yarn (which I love), the pattern was all in stockinette stitch, which was good for TV, movie knitting, but went on for quite a while. I would recommend using a simple pattern to keep it interesting. I just use a shawl pin to keep the front together.

I’m happy with how this turned out, but would not knit it again. In fact I’m entertaining the idea of frogging it and reknitting the yarn into something else. In fact I would say it is as much knitting as a real sweater, and not near as flattering . My husband calls it my “bottom warmer”, haha I would recommend an easy sweater/cardigan pattern instead.

A couple of simple sweaters I would recommend are: (free patterns)

Caora Sweater -- https://www.craftsy.com/knitting/patterns/caora-sweater/167905

Mammas Hjemmestrikkede-genser-skappelgenseren, https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mammas-hjemmestrikkede-genser-skappelgenseren

May your knitting Needles Fly as fast as Dragonflies…….