At this point, I don’t think my knitting obsession is a secret. I was initially inspired to give it a try after seeing my college bestie post about it on social media. Sitting in a little yarn shop (LYS) in Old Town Alexandria in 2019, ready to learn, I had no idea I’d be making almost all of my winter clothes in a few short years.

I made my first sweater in November 2020, almost a full year after first learning the difference between a purl and knit stitch. Swimming in shock and surprise that it fit as intended, I looked to Mark for kudos. He hit pause on the movie he was watching, told me it looked great, and then asked me to make him the sweater on the screen.

See, friends, it was nearing Christmas, so we were watching all of the holiday classics: Christmas Vacation, Elf, Bad Santa, Christmas Carol, and of course… Die Hard. Mark wanted me to figure out the sweater from Bruce Willis’ iconic scene in Dulles airport.

Task at hand, I scoured Ravelry (essentially social media and a pattern database for the fiber arts community) to find a knitting pattern that was close to the movie sweater. The closest I could find was Lumberjack by Marzena Kołaczek. Structurally, Lumberjack is a little different than Willis’ look. The movie sweater is a drop shoulder construction, where Lumberjack is a raglan. It was important for me to be able to knit the sweater top-down (literally starting at the neck to the bottom hem) instead of in pieces and seaming together at the end. This would allow for fittings throughout the process so I could tear back if needed (spoiler: I ended up needing to do this). The other key difference is the movie sweater looks like it’s 1x1 ribbing (alternating purl and knit stitch) throughout and I don’t love anyone enough to knit a whole sweater this way. Knit stitches are easier and quicker than purl stitches and when knitting in the round (literally in a circle/tube), knitting every single row results in stockinette stitch… aka the classic “knit look” of little v’s.

The image on the left is an example of a drop shoulder. You can see that the sleeve starts halfway between the shoulder and bicep. This sweater was knit flat in pieces and then seamed together at the end. The image on the right is a raglan. Raglans are probably best known for their execution in baseball tees. This sweater was knit top-down, just like the Die Hard sweater I was making.

Pattern in hand, the next step was to take measurements and buy the yarn. Based on Mark’s chest measurement, it was determined the best fit would be the pattern XXL size. Knowing the target size, we set off for the yarn shop.

Yarn is categorized by weight, or how thick it is. This is done using wraps per inch (WPI). The categories are 1 Fine, 2 Sport, 3 Double-knit (DK), 4 Worsted, 5 Bulky, and 6 Super Bulky. Lumberjack calls for a DK weight yarn. Mark liked how the Rico Design Essentials Merino Plus Tweed DK looked and felt, so we picked up 14 balls of grey for the sweater and 2 of natural for the collar. Since the pattern didn’t have a different color for the inside of the collar, I would have to figure this portion out and really didn’t know how much yarn it would take, so the 2 balls were a guesstimate.

Here are what different weights of yarn look like side-by-side. As you can tell, there doesn’t look like there’s a big difference when only going up to the next category, but there is once you get started on a project. Going from left to right we have: 2 Sport, 3 DK, 4 Worsted, 5 Bulky, and 6 Super Bulky.

Before starting any large project, I do a gauge swatch. All knitters have a unique way of knitting, and it can result in bigger or smaller stitches, even if they’re using the same yarn and needles as another knitter. Pattern designers (at least the good ones) will include gauge information in the pattern, essentially how many stitches and rows it took them to get a 4x4” square. Since wool can grow once it’s washed, it’s important to wash the swatch like you would the finished project. For the Die Hard sweater, my swatch had an extra half stitch using the recommended needle size.

At this point, a knitter has two options for getting the correct fit with a gauge that’s slightly off: size up or down for the needle size or adjusting stitch counts in the chosen size. I liked the drape of the fabric with the recommended size so I decided to do the math and see how much being off by a half stitch would affect the finished size. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but it made my finished project about an inch smaller around than the pattern XXL. I determined that was okay because Mark’s chest measurement was about 3.5 inches less than the pattern’s finished dimensions, so his sweater would have just a little bit less positive ease. Gentle reader, if you are now realizing how much math goes into knitting, welcome to the show.

With gauge all squared away, I cast on the stitches for the XXL size. This pattern had me knit flat to shape the back and the neck. When knitting a top-down sweater in the round, patterns will often either have you start the project flat and then join in the round after several rows or they’ll have you do shorts rows, which is when you knit back and forth instead of completing the whole round. Both of these methods accomplish the same goal: making the back of the sweater higher than the front. This is important because without neck shaping, the collar can sit too high in the front and be uncomfortable (think: getting strangled by the sweater collar). I prefer knitting flat first instead of short rows, because short row stitches look a little funny in my opinion.

Here’s an example of wrap and turn short rows. They’re near the collar where the sweater makes a fisheye shape. You can see where the wrap and turn stitch is pretty clearly on the right side where the stitch is raised a little bit.

Once I was able to join the work in the round, I still had to knit the full yoke before I was able to separate the sleeves from the body. The yoke is the top section of the sweater that covers the chest and shoulders. In a top-down raglan sweater, it progressively gets bigger as you knit away from the neck. The raglan is the part of the sweater that runs from the neck to the armpit. This is where the knitter increases the stitch count. There are a few ways to increase stitches, but the most common is to make 1 left (M1L) or make 1 right (M1R). The increases are named as such because of the direction that the stitches lean. I love how raglans look for this reason; I think it gives the sweater a clean, polished finish.

This shows a raglan yoke that is ready to separate the body from the sleeves. The sleeves are the smaller sections on the left and the right. You can tell which side is the back because it is just a little bit longer thanks to the short rows.

Most patterns have a yoke depth between 8 and 11 inches, depend on how fitted the design is and which size you’re making. Once the yoke is completed, the sleeves are put on hold while the rest of the body is knit. This is done by putting the future sleeve stitches on scrap yarn. Sometimes if I’m not sure if I’ll have enough yarn for the project, I’ll knit a full sleeve before knitting the body to see how much yarn it will require. This gives me the option to unravel a bit and make it a 3/4 sleeve or make the body more cropped. Additionally, depending on the fiber used, like wool or alpaca, I’ll purposely knit sleeves and body a little on the short side since they will grow once washed. Synthetic fibers like acrylic and polyester typically don’t grow. Of course, you can also always buy more yarn, but yarn is dyed in batches. Whenever you buy yarn, the label will have a lot number. Sometimes the difference in color is very stark between dye lots, so usually you try to buy as much yarn as you could possibly need for your project so all of it is from the same dye lot.

For the Die Hard sweater, I should have picked up the collar before finishing the body to make sure that it still fit as intended, as sometimes the collar can change how a sweater sits, but I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to make the collar two-toned. Mark and I had agreed that if I couldn’t figure out how to modify the pattern, then the single color collar would be acceptable, but not ideal.

By the time I had knit most of one sleeve, it was summer and Europe was in the middle of an oppressive heatwave. Mark refused to do fit checks at this point (and honestly, I don’t blame him since it was 86 degrees in our house day and night), so I put the sleeve back on hold and decided it was time for the collar.

Since I still didn’t know how I was going to do it, I figured I could at least follow the pattern to get it started. I knew that I would have to double up, fold and sew the collar to the inside of the neckline in order to do both colors. This, in theory, should be a similar to making a beanie double-brimmed, which I had done a few times before. The part that was throwing me off was the fact that the collar had short rows in it to make the back longer than the front to give it the shawl collar.

One morning on a run (I swear all of my best problem-solving is done while pounding the pavement), the answer to the collar conundrum suddenly became crystal clear: I would follow the pattern as written with the grey color for the outside, and then join the cream color and reverse the instructions so the cream had the same number of short rows as the outside. In theory, this would make the inside of the collar long enough so that it wouldn’t pull the grey into the inside when I sewed it down.

It turned out that my two balls of cream yarn were a correct guess for how much I would need to knit the inside collar, yielding about half a ball leftover. While everything was still on the needles, I folded the collar inward and it looked like everything was going to work out. If you can’t tell, whenever I’m unsure about something, I like to leave it on the needles instead of binding off. It’s possible to undo a bind off, but it’s time consuming.

To sew a folded collar, there are a few different methods. You can either bind off the stitches and then line up the bind off edge with the cast on edge and whip stitch them together. Alternatively, you can take the live stitch off the needle and whip stitch it directly to the cast on edge, eliminating the bind off step. Already close to 100 project hours, I decided to do the latter to save time. The most important part of doing a folded collar is making sure the stitches line up, otherwise the collar will twist slightly. I still haven’t mastered this technique quite yet, but everything seemed to lay well for the Die Hard sweater.

Here’s an example of a twisted folded collar. You can tell because in the front it leans to the left instead of coming straight down. This collar was bound off first and then sewn to the body of the sweater.

The second step of the collar was attaching it to the front. I was worried this part was going to be especially thick since I was essentially attaching four layers of fabric instead of two like the pattern had. I referenced Willis’ sweater before moving forward to make sure the button would be on the correct side, which meant I had to do the opposite of the pattern instructions. Since I had a lot more fabric to handle than the pattern, I took a guess on how to sew it all down, whip stitching the left edge to the cast on first and then whip stitching the right edge to the left edge. I think it turned out pretty clean for not knowing what the hell I was doing.

With the collar finished and temps finally cooling off, it was time for a fit check to assess the sleeve. The way the pattern was written made the sleeve for the XXL ridiculously wide and long on Mark. I folded up the fabric to what we thought might yield a better fit and realized I needed to reduce everything by about 10 stitches. This gave me a stitch count that was close to the pattern size L, so I followed those instructions instead. I also changed the intervals on the sleeve decreases so that the sleeve wouldn’t be so long in length. Once I finished the cuff on the first sleeve, I had Mark do a final fit check. The adjustments I made to the sleeves were perfect, so I followed my written changes for the second sleeve.

My favorite part of any knitting project comes after the project is bound off and finished with the knitting portion: blocking. Blocking is a really fancy term for washing the item and letting it dry. Why I love blocking so much is that it really smooths out all the minor tension issues in a piece. As I mentioned above, animal fibers like wool swell a little bit when they get wet. This helps redistribute the stitch so that both legs sit evenly. Obviously blocking isn’t complete magic; if you have major tension issues, no amount of blocking will save it, but it will help smooth it all out.

To block a project, I fill up a sink or the tub with cool water. Super important that it’s not hot otherwise the wool can shrink and felt. I’ll then add a special no-rinse detergent called Wool Wash and get the water nice and sudsy. Then, I’ll dunk the project into the water, holding it down so the wool absorbs the water. This is another critical point — animal fibers should never be swished around or wrung as it can felt the fabric. After all the little bubbles stop rising to the top, I let the project soak for about 15 minutes.

When it’s ready to come out of the bath, I carefully lift it up in a ball, making sure that the sleeves don’t hang down and stretch. I’ll get some of the excess water out by pushing my hands together, again ensuring that I’m not wringing out the water. Then, I’ll place it on top of towel. I roll the sweater up inside the towel hotdog-style and then I’ll stand on it to get all the water out.

Then I’ll lay the sweater flat on my blocking mats, which are just those cheap interlocking mats that everyone puts down in their home gyms to protect their floors. Since wool has memory, it will stay the same shape and size as it’s blocked. If I knit the sweater on the short side, I’ll bring in my measuring tape and make sure that each section is the correct length.

Here’s the Die Hard sweater taking it’s sweet time to dry. Also, this is my special room where I meditate, journal, read, knit… and occasionally block knitting projects.

Because of how thick the collar was for the Die Hard sweater, it took forever to dry. So basically I’m only going to wash it as needed from here on out. Once it was finally dry, I wove in all the ends. Since I went through almost 12 balls of yarn in the body and 2 in the collar, there were a ton of ends to weave in.

The end was almost in sight, all that was left was the button. Sewing a button onto knitting is easy; you treat it like any other fabric with sewing thread if the button holes are small. To make the little loop, I made a single chain with a crochet hook (oh shit, a whole new craft entering the scene) and sewed it to the right side of the collar.

Mark is thrilled with the final result of his Die Hard sweater dream. After the first couple of wears, I ended up sewing down the back of the collar to the body because it kept flipping up onto his face when he moved around. I think this may be because the pattern didn’t make the shawl collar long enough and needed a few more short rows, but this little adaptation works.

Overall this project took me 119 hours and 18 minutes, excluding the yarn shopping. Something I came to appreciate after making this sweater was that I get to make the smaller end of sizes when I knit sweaters for myself. Usually I knit for a 38 inch chest instead of a 44 inch one, and adding 6 inches each row really added up. Sweaters I’ve knit for myself have taken between 65 hours on the complex side or 45 hours on the easier side, so it’s quite the difference. I’m just happy that he likes it and actually wears it. It’s all any knitter can ask for.