Knitting THE 1940s Seawaves Jumper!
For my second knitted garment ever, I decided to jump right in to the vintage sweater which had piqued my interest all the way back in 2018—the 1941 Seawaves Jumper! I had actually bought an e-copy of the pattern off Etsy way back then before I found it for free on Vintage Pattern Files Blog (download link doesn’t seem to work though). The pattern is also collected in Jane Waller’s book Knitting Fashions of the 1940s, which I was able to access through my institutional library (you can borrow it off archive.org here).
As seen on the pattern cover photo, it is a short-sleeved jumper knitted out of two contrasting colours with very 40s square sleeves and little curlicues adorning the neckline and sleeve hem. The stripes part is actually knitted horizontally, so simply carrying the yarn up stripes is enough! The waves are formed by doing one row of full of increases and decreases every 8 rows. The rest 7 rows are just plain knit or purl rows.
Pattern cover of the Seawaves Jumper
This means the seawaves jumper is actually surprisingly beginner friendly. In my opinion, if you can do knits, purls, purl-togethers, and left-lifted increases, you can knit this sweater!
Me wearing the finished seawaves jumper!
Now for a few (hopefully helpful) notes on this project:
Supplies
Drops baby merino in colour Petrol: 3 x 50g balls
Drops baby merino in colour Ice Blue: 4 x 50g balls
2.75mm needles for the ribbing and 3.25 mm needles for the body and sleeves (either straight or circulars are fine)
Lots of locking stitch markers (to mark the increases and decreases)
Tapestry needle (to darn in ends and sew together the sweater)
Gauge
Pattern gauge (I assumed stockinette?): 28 stitches for 10 cm
Ribbing: 46 stitches and 38 rows to make 10 cm x 10 cm swatch (1x1 ribbing). The ribbing is supposed to be 15 cm tall.
Waves: each horizontal repeat of 18 stitches is 6 cm wide, each vertical set of stripes (light+dark colour) is about 1.25 cm tall. For reference, unstretched the bust (measured from underarm to underarm) is about 28 inches, to fit the pattern’s 34 inch bust.
Stretch: the waves are very stretchy, easily with a stretch factor of 1.2~1.4.
Yarn shrinkage: the Drops yarn I used is superwash, so when washed, it actually stretches out a little. I put it into the dryer on low until it was 75% dry and laid flat to dry to get it to original measurements. On my swatch I dried it all the way and got about 4% horizontal and 9% vertical shrinkage.
Pattern adjustments
The pattern unaltered is to fit a 34 inch bust and (I assume) a 28 inch waist. Fits me great at about 32 bust and 28 waist.
If I were making it again I’d make it half a wave repeat shorter at the waist edge (9 stitches, about 3cm) since I have a short torso (about 40cm from back neck to waist).
I’d also shorten the 15 cm ribbing by a tiny bit, probably to 13 cm?
Adjustments to length should be done by multiples of the wave repeat (18 stitches)
Adjustments to width can be easily done by adding sets of stripes (8 rows for each set). Remember to widen the ribbing by 4 stitches for every set of stripe.
Now allow my to show such gratuitous process pictures along with small tips and tricks that helped me.
All four panels laid flat. There are 22 sets of stripes on each body panel and 19 sets of strips on each sleeve.
First is a picture of all the panels completed and laid flat alongside each other before they were sewn up. Yes, the pattern is surprisingly rectangular; the armholes on the front and back pieces (which are identical, by the way) are ninety-degree angles where you just cast on (or cast off) stitches and continue knitting. The left and right sleeves are also completely identical, which means you don’t have to mirror them.
Strangely, because the “tentacles” that make up the curlicues are knitted at the top of the panel on the body pieces and on the bottom of the panel on the sleeves, they are different widths. The body tentacles are wider, since they are knitted like this: cast on->knit->knit->purl->knit->bind off->switch to dark color and continue knitting, while the sleeve ones are knitted like this: cast on->knit->purl->bind off->continue knitting in pale colour. There are also 7 tentacles on the sleeve and only 6 on the body.
Image showing wrong way of knitting tentacles (left) and corrected version (right)
Speaking of the “tentacles”, they are NOT knitted on every light-coloured stripe, they only appear every OTHER stripe. I didn’t notice this until mostly through my first body panel, and let me tell you I cried. (I had to rip out about 12 hours of work.) And even after that sometimes when I zoned out knitting I’d forget to add the tentacles or add another one and have to tink (reverse knit) a couple of rows.
Less frustratingly, notice the row of stitch markers on the left (wrong tentacle) pic. I put them in on the increase/decrease row to mark where I’ve finished the purl-togethers and should move on to increases, it’s so much faster than counting the whole row again and again to make sure I’ve done the correct number!
Progress picture of body panel showing how ribbing is put on the same circular needle as the wave part. Bonus Jellycat Sky Dragon!
The pattern asks you to do the ribbing first, then put it on a stitch holder, and knit one stitch of the waves to the ribbing on every downwards row by opening the stitch holder. I tried this and it was supremely annoying to have the stitch holder flapping around. I found that you can just put the entire row of ribbing onto the needle to the left of the waves, similar to how an applied border is done, and knit back and forth on the waves instead. True, on return rows the ribbing will be on a different side to the rest of the waves, but you can get around that easily by always knitting two rows (ha). This also gets you a nicer finish at the join because the stitches of the ribbing aren’t loosened by the stitch holder flapping about. Double win!
The two body panels, showing the tentacles before (right) and after (left) being sewn down into curlicues
After the panels are finished, but before they are blocked, I darned in all the loose yarns and sewed up the tentacles into those love seawave curlicues. I used the light coloured yarn to sew had sew them down. If you use the same yarn it’s really hard to see the stitches. I placed the curls so that half of them hung over the fabric edge and half on it. Some examples I’ve seen sew the curlicues a bit looser, but I sewed mine down close together so they’d have more structural integrity. (After all, I do intend to wash this piece by machine, albeit in a garment bag and on gentle.) (I am not a hand wash girlie.)
Seam side of sleeve, showing one tentacle left un-curled
And all that’s left is to sew up the sweater! I used the mattress stitch for the side seams (sewn from the right side of the fabric), and a back stitch (sewn from the reverse side of the fabric) for the horizontal underarm and sleevehead seams.
The sleeves are a tiny bit tricky. I first sewed up the vertical sleeve seam with mattress stitch. Notice there’s one loose tentacle? That one can only be sewn into the curlicue until the sleeve seam is closed.
As for the (very square) sleeve head, I looked at the pattern picture and it looked like they simply folded it in half and sewed it close, so that’s what I did, using back stitch from the wrong side.
When I set the sleeve into the armhole, I started from the top of the sleeve and did one vertical seam first with mattress stitch, stopping at the horizontal underarm part. Then I went back to the top and did the other vertical seam in mattress stitch. I put the yarn into the garment and closed the horizontal underarm seam with a back stitch from the inside. For some reason I had one extra stripe on the sleeve than on the garment, so I had to smoosh them a bit, and they aren’t perfectly matched like the rest of the body. Oh well. No one will see them anyway.
Flat lay of the finished sweater—can you spot the sleeve and body joins? They’re surprisingly invisible!
Annnndddd that’s the whole sweater finished! It only took me (checks notes) some 90 hours, spread over the course of three months. But I’m only a beginner, and I finished it, and imho it looks pretty much like the pattern photo! (Or it would if I had a figure like the pattern model, but I digress.) Like so many crafts, you never know how long it takes until you’re doing it. If you’d like one of your very own, please do NOT ask me to make one—ask the amazing Roksolana! Her Etsy shop has such very, very fair prices for amazing hand-knitted vintage sweaters. Seriously. I’m starting to love knitting but it takes SO LONG. For reference, I can sew a 1950s-style dress in about 10-15 hours.
Back view of the finished Seawaves jumper as worn by the author!
In conclusion, this pattern is not as difficult as it looks, and it looks very striking and very vintage when worn! It could easily be made more “modern” by shortening the rib, or into a crop top by shortening everything, or even into a tank top. If you’d like to see some progress clips of me knitting this jumper, I’ve got a reel on that on my Instagram, which you can watch here. Possibly follow my Instagram (@laurencewenyuli) while you’re at it too!
Now, on to planning my next project. This 19th century Pineapple reticule looks fun, what do you think?
Seawaves sweater without sleeves. Is it just me, or does it look pretty cute as a tank top too?