Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Cardigan - hanging in mid air

I finished the last cardigan, Newsom, and I've not yet done the final photo or update, small issues like end of winter and finding time. But I have been wearing it and loving the addition to the wardrobe. I've also been fielding requests for the pattern from people at work - non ravelers. Newsom is a paid pattern, so is Slanted Sleeven. I struggle with requests to share patterns, in the old days you simply loaned them the book or pamphlet once you were finished, now knowing the designer deserves the recognition I tend to buy a second copy of the pattern and print it out and give it to them - but when that happens a lot I find myself wondering why I am covering the cost and maybe I should just email the link so they can buy it themselves. The copyright dilemma aside - I'm finding cardigans useful, I know I have several cardigan amounts of yarn in my stash and I wanted to knit another.

 

Despite liking cardigans I find I'm quite fussy when it comes to patterns, preferring fitted, shorter designs knit in fingering weight yarns. Those patterns seem to be in the minority, and ones that work with variegated yarns even less. Recently April she will come, was released, and was free for a short time (now it's a paid pattern). I had some lovely alpaca mohair merino hand dyed in shades of purple that needed to be a cardigan. The yarn was dyed by an Indie dyer who isn't active right now, and it's beautiful.

I cast on and knit the larger size, but realized when I completed the yoke that was not the right size for me, so frogged the work and began again in a smaller size. 'April she will come' is a top down seamless raglan so easy to try on for fit as it is worked, and when I tried it on I realized I wanted to slightly raise the back neck - as the pattern has the front and back pretty much the same. I'm not sure about most people. It my front and back are different, and my clothes look better if they reflect my body shape a little. So when I cast on for the second time I adjusted the numbers and worked 8 short rows from mid shoulder to mid shoulder across the back.

The cardigan has lace motifs on the sleeves, which are only partly charted, and I'm ok with that. The placement is regular enough to easily work out how to continue the pattern. Well that was what I thought, seems I made a mistake early in the pattern. See the lace? Seems the motifs should be not so centered but spread across the sleeve more.

So I slipped the work off the needles and frogged the errant rows. I frogged back to a plain knit row - as I'm not confident enough to pick up a lace row with yarn overs and knit three togethers.

 

To put the stitches back on the needle I pinch the live row between my thumb and forefinger. Then I scoop up each stitch with the needle in the left hand. I don't worry about how the stitches are oriented. Just about catching them. If one drops I pick up the easiest live stitch, again I don't fuss with repairing a dropped stitch - I just catch them as they appear. Once I have all, the stitches I worked a slipped stitch row, I slip each one from left to right needle in turn - and this is where I fix any that sit funny, or were dropped or split. If I remember I also put back the markers, mostly I don't remember and I add them on the first row I knit.

Then I make sure I know what row I am on and begin knitting. And I try and avoid making the mistake that resulted in the frogging. But I'm human - and I've been known to make the same mistake several times.

 

So here I am, on my way to finish the yoke, the yarn is beautiful - this image probably represents the colour best.

Take care, na Stella.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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