This blog talks about my attempts to knit the Memories Sweater pattern by Sally Melville.  I will start by sharing the project photos of Sally’s inspiring sweater.  As you can see, this is a neat pattern and a great way to use up random bits of sock yarn.

My first attempt with the pattern was in May 2022.  I dug out some sock yarn and started.  After 5 weeks, this is all the progress I managed.  I had a few hiccups… one was that the various sock yarns had slightly different gauges.  And the bigger problem was the square itself.  The mitred square in the pattern had a spine going down the middle of the square.  I found making squares in this style to be frustrating.  And so the project got put into a bag on a time out.  Three years later it has not been retrieved.

Now we advance to June 2025.  My husband I and were going on a long car trip to visit family.  I wanted to find a project that would be good trip knitting and also that would not take too much space.  I began to wonder if maybe I should attempt the Memories Sweater again.

To try and avoid the gauge problem, I decided to use a single brand of sock yarn.  I had this selection of Patons Stretch Socks, which is a fingering yarn with lots of cotton (41% Cotton, 39% Wool, 13% Nylon, 7% Other).  I thought it would be a good match for a summer top like this.

Next I decided to look around for another mitred square pattern to use as a substitute.  I found the Knitted Patchwork Recipe by Martine Ellis and gave it a try.  I was very happy with my first square.

And in late June I started knitting in earnest.  I knit steadily from June 30th to mid August.

Along the way I began to worry that I would run out of yarn.  I posted an ISO (In Search Of) post on Ravelry and a few people came to my aid and sold me spare balls from their stash.  These new colours got added into the panels.

 

Eventually I had 2 completed panels and then I began to add edging on 3 sides as the pattern instructed.

And here is a view of the panels with edging complete.

I then tried to figure out what to do next.  I read and re-read the pattern for the shoulder/sleeve section and was stumped.  In the original sweater the designer had more squares in her panels than I had in mine.  So after searching through pattern notes and looking online I resorted to emailing the designer for help.  Luckily Sally Melville kindly answered my questions and has provided some clarifications to help me move forward.  However, I have not yet had the time to devote to implementing her directions and starting the shoulder section of the sweater.  But I am hoping to get to that soon.  I look forward to sharing my finished sweater in a future blog post.