Frogs-pullover

This is one of my long time projects, I made it for about half a year. I would like to share the process of making this pullover but I am afraid this is not 100% perfect pattern. However maybe you can get just something useful for you.

Yarn Almina Madame Tricote (50g/169m) - about 400g (different colours). Needles - knitting needles 1.5 mm.
Size: length=47cm, width=30cm, sleeves (semi-long)=22cm.
Used technique - patchwork (modular knitting). Size of one square=4x4cm.

The draft:

And the basic knitting in real (not too big difference this time except colours):

How to make a square. Pick up stiches of both sides of previous squares (15 of each side). If it is first squares row then cast on 30 stiches. Knit in garter stich (i.e. knit every row). Decrease 2 st every 2nd row in the middle: sl1,k1,psso, k2tog. The last 2 rows decrease every row (until 2 st remained), cut thread and pull through. When making the next square don't forget knit in this thread - to avoid many endings of thread at the end of project.

Not all pieces are squares. You will have to make triangles as well where needed. Here must be split for a zip-fastener:

That means that you pick up 15st from only one side and decrease (k2tog) two last stiches in the each 2nd row (the middle i.e. the place of split is the place of decrease).

To make smooth line on the shoulders pick up the remaining stiches on the top:

Decrease at marked places. Marked white - 2st every 2nd row (sl1,k1,psso, k2tog), marked blue - 2st every 4th row, marked red - k2tog at the end of each row. Continue untile there are no stiches left between red and white points. Cast off. The result should look like this:

There are 2 such pieces on each shoulder. Leave 2 not filled triangles on the back. They will be filled separately:

Pick up 30 stiches (as usually), make decrease in the middle (as described for square) and k2tog in the end of each row. This makes a triangle with a straight line on the top. You make 2 middle top triangles this way.

Now it looks like this:



The collar is knitted top to bottom. I casted on 100 stiches and increased evenly to reach the total length of the top edge.

Sew to the top of the pullover using backstich seam.

Sew in the zip. Knit 2 pieces of small bands and sew them on the left side to hide the zip.


How it looks from above:

The pockets-frogs:

A frog consists of 4 square pieces (knitted as usual) and the head. Head is knitted as following - pick up the stiches from the both sides of the top square. Increase 2 st each 2 rows. Continue until th head is big enough. Crochet the edge (i.e. mouth) and make 5 double crochets in the both sides of the moth. Sew in the eyes (this frog has felted eyes.
Legs - knitted round (12st for back legs, 10st for front legs) and increased on the ends to make paddles.

Here are the component parts (I made buttonholes in the head, my idea was to make eyes as buttons. Unfortunaly this idea failed, so I sew the eyes on the head.)

Sew on the pockets using backstich seam:


Fix the legs to make them look normally:

So - if the pullover was sleeveless it would look like this:

But I forsed myself to knit sleeves (because they were in my initial idea and I didn't want to draw back). Sleeves are just straight, knitted round:

And here with my topmodel (very bad pictures because of my dieing camera):