I just finished knitting The Knitter’s Dude, designed by Andrea Rangel, and inspired by the sweater worn by Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski. This fun cardigan had been on my list a while and I was glad to finally make it!
The Knitter’s Dude is a great engaging project for an adventurous knitter. It has stranded colorwork, tubular cast-on and bind-off, and short-row shaping on the shawl collar. The sweater is steeked, meaning it’s knit in the round and then cut open into a cardigan. I’d call it an advanced level knitting pattern; you need to keep track of a colorwork chart and separate shaping instructions at the same time. The stranded colorwork has long floats and the large pattern repeat is not easy to memorize, or work without looking at the chart. (It obviously needs be this way to match the pattern on the sweater from the movie.) I found it safest to work on those sections in the mornings, and save the stretches of single-color knitting for my evening knitting time.
The pattern called for a worsted weight, non-superwash yarn, and Ultra Alpaca was an easy choice for me! It is one of my favorite Berroco yarns, a 50% wool, 50% alpaca blend. It has a nice natural feel, and comes in just the right colors!
I used colors Barley (62189), Potting Soil Mix (6279), and Pitch Black (6245).
To reinforce the steek, I used needle felting, a new method for me. For other sweaters I have steeked, I’ve used my sewing machine to reinforce with a seam. This was a great alternative. Instead of having to set up the machine just to sew that one seam, I got to stab at the sweater with a sharp needle! Yes, it was was fun! The needle felts the back side of the fabric – there is no way the stitches would come undone – yet the front side of the fabric is basically unchanged. Very cool!
This is the needle I used.
I then cut the steek (I promise it’s not as scary as it sounds!), trimmed the excess fabric off the cut edge, and used a ribbon from my mother’s collection to cover the cut edge. The ribbon also gives stability to the front of the sweater, preventing that front edge from stretching.
Click here to see when I cut the sweater open (Instagram link).
This sweater was a gift for my (very knitworthy) husband. But bonus – it fits us both!
Design Team Blog 
Wow, I absolutely enjoyed reading this project diary!
The needle felting tip was new to me (I have done machine steeking so far) and I definitely want to give that a try. And I’m surprised to see how well it works with Ultra Alpaca!
Thank you for taking the time to take the detail photos and write this article.
Thanks Gabi!