DIY: Mount Robson Pullover by Jessie McKitrick

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I knit the Mount Robson Pullover by Jessie McKitrick for our brother. The Mount Robson Pullover pattern was one of the few masculine patterns included in 100 Knits: Interweave’s Ultimate Pattern Collection. I saw this military-style sweater and wanted to knit it for Ryan. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), he wasn’t interested. So I offered to knit it for our brother instead, and he said yes!

I knit the 42″ chest size for our brother. Thankfully he lives very close, so I could ask him about colour choices and double-check sizes. Karlos is rather sensitive to wool, so I wanted to make sure that he would not find the yarn itchy. I ended up buying 12 skeins of Sandnes Garn Sunday, a lace-fingering-weight 100% merino yarn. It is a superwash yarn, meaning that the sweater won’t felt and shrink if Karlos accidentally puts the sweater in the washing machine. I originally thought about knitting this in a dark, bottle-green colour, but our local yarn store didn’t have enough of that colour in stock. Instead, I chose this dark burgundy colour.

The pattern instructs you to knit the sweater in pieces, bottom up. I started with one sleeve as a gauge swatch. Despite getting gauge, the sleeves turned out quite long. The stitch pattern is called Cartridge Rib, a kind of reversible slip-stitch rib. Thankfully the stitch pattern was easy to remember, and I could take my knitting with me. I finished knitting the first ball of yarn while we were on vacation in Nova Scotia. I also knit part of the front while we were travelling in Switzerland and Italy.

However, due to the size of the sweater and the weight of the yarn, this sweater took me ages to knit! I found the repetetive ribbing rather boring, as there is no colour change or different stitch to keep things interesting. I cast on on 26 March 2022, and cast off 29 February 2024. Then it took me six hours to seam all the pieces together! Knitting a fingering weight pullover is not new to me – my first garment was my Lyngen pullover, which I finished in under a month.

The Mount Robson Pullover has saddle shoulders. I had never knit this type of shoulder before, but it was pretty straightforward. The sleeve saddle was an extension of the sleeve cap, and knit in stockinette stitch. This gives the finished sweater a somewhat military uniform style. The shaping of the front piece allowed for a crew neckline that didn’t ride up, giving the sweater a comfortable fit.

Our brother loves the finished sweater! He runs hot, so he didn’t want a thick, bulky sweater. However, he’s also a big fan of wool (as are we, obviously), so a layering piece would be perfect. He likes to wear this sweater under a windbreaker when he goes for chilly bike rides in the spring.

As I said before, the only issue with this sweater is that the arms turned out really long. The pattern is meant to have turned up cuffs anyway, but this is a bit silly! Because the arm shaping happens mostly above the elbow, I would have to rip back the whole sleeve to shorten it. I decided against doing that, as I was already taking an abnormally long time to knit this sweater.

After seaming the sweater, I picked up sitches around the neckline to knit the ribbing. I used a stretchy cast off to make sure it would still fit over our brother’s head. I love the finished sweater, but I don’t think I’ll knit this one again!

Get the Mount Robson Pullover pattern on Ravelry here.