Lola Sweater Pattern Review
Hello again,
I’m back today reviewing another pattern that I recently completed. This was the Lola Sweater by November Knits who I hadn’t heard of before discovering this pattern but I’m very glad that I now do.
I discovered this pattern on pinterest when I saw this photo and decided I had to make the sweater in the photo or I might die.
image from @sstrikk on instagram
The pattern is a top down (start with the collar and work down), drop shoulder (sleeves join under the arm), raglan (type of increase) sweater that uses chunky yarn to achieve an oversized boxy fit.
The pattern gives two options for materials either Sandnes Garn (Kos held together with Ballerina Chunky Mohair) or Permin (Alice held together with Bella). At first, since I still sometimes make mistakes, I considered knitting it with Drops (Air held together with Melody). However, because I wanted it to look exactly like the image I did some TikTok research and found someone who’d knit the same pattern in drops. She did a great job but to me it didn’t look enough like the pattern. In addition, I’d visited Lewes the previous weekend and stopped into Ida’s House, a wool shop on the high street that stocks Sandnes Garn. They didn’t have Kos or the Ballerina Chunky Mohair but I loved the look of the ones they did have so I decided that I would invest and knit the pattern in the recommended yarn. To some people, spending £120 on a knitted sweater might seem reasonable (I know there are many brands of yarn that cost a lot more than £10 for 50g) but for me it was the most amount of money I’d spent on a sweater (and I had to knit it myself?!?). That was a very long way to say. I used Sandnes Garn Kos in the colour Forest Brown and Ballerina Chunky Mohair in the colour Dark Chocolate.
Kos by Sandnes Garn in Forest Brown
Ballerina Chunky Mohair by Sandnes Garn in Dark Chocolate
The pattern starts with a folded collar and then you work on a raglan yoke before splitting for sleeves, working the body and then picking up arm hole stitches to work the sleeves. It’s knit on 9mm needles so it works up quite quickly, I would say it took me around 15 hours to finish.
I really enjoyed making this pattern. It was easy to read and follow and overall worked up really well. However, I would note a few things. My favourite thing about top down sweaters is that you can try them on pretty soon after you start which means you can make adjustments easily. I really liked the fit as I was progressing so didn’t make any changes. However, when I blocked my sweater, the yoke dropped a lot so the seam where the sleeves join was quite low. Some people might prefer this but personally I like the seam to be relatively close to my armpit so I was a bit annoyed that blocking changed this. In her pictures it doesn’t look like it dropped as much as mine though so perhaps this was something I did in the blocking process.
In a similar vein, when I blocked my gauge swatch it didn’t seem to grow as much as my sweater did when I blocked it. I’m not quite sure why but just something to keep in mind if you are using the Sandnes Garn yarn because my sleeves ended up being a bit too long.
Nevertheless, I am very happy with my sweater. I’ve worn it pretty much every day since I took it off the blocking mat. I would definitely recommend splurging on the yarn, together they make the softest material I’ve ever felt and it feels very nice to wear.
I’m very glad I discovered November Knits because she has many amazing patterns that I hope to make in the future such as the Eun Sweater and the Io Mittens.
I would love to know what you are knitting/crocheting at the moment! Drop me a message on instagram (@coolgirlsknit) or email at hotgirlsknit@gmail.com
Until next time 👋
