Short Back and Sides

Before Christmas, all wrapped up in the spangly festivities mood, I decided I would like a sequinned jumper to wear with jeans in the Christmas holidays. Looking round the shops in my price range there were few on offer and the couple I found were either very poor quality or the smallest size drowned me.

Due to my OI my spine curved when I was a child, leading me to lose inches of my already petite stature. My arms are often the right length for size 6 or 8 adult jumpers but unless the jumpers are cropped I find the bodies to be too long. That's where knitting my own jumpers, with a short back and sides, comes in very handy.

I had some King Cole Galaxy DK yarn left over from a previous design project of mine where I'd dreamed up a simple pattern for wristwarmers and knitted them up for friends' Christmas presents. For my sequinned jumper I plumped for white. I used the pattern 'Melissa' from Rowan's Purelife Organic Wool Collection as a basis, adapting lengths as I went along. One of the things I like about 'Melissa', knitted up in King Cole Galaxy DK, is that the sleeve and jumper bottoms curl up in a slightly bohemian fashion. I used the cable cast on method to make sure cast on edges are robust.

Unfortunately I didn't finish the jumper in time for Christmas but it did make it off the needles in time for New Year! My tip for sewing up is cut off the sequins first from length of yarn you're sewing up with. The sequins won't pass through the knitting to sew up.