New Cardigan
I am impressed with myself. I took less than a month to knit an entire cardigan sweater! I not only quickly knit this item but...
- It actually fits
- I had the exact yarn in my yarn collection needed for the pattern.
I began the sweater on May 28th. The pattern is called Sitcom Chic on Ravelry.
I would change the sleeves just a tiny bit to make them less full when I knit it again.
I did a few changes while knitting based on other knitter comments. I added the motif of skipped stitches to the bottom of the sweater instead of knitting it plain all the way to the top. I also knit the front edges on as I worked on the entire sweater. I dislike picking up stitches, especially when the pattern gives a very large number of stitches to pick up. The binding on the front edges was just 3 stitches wide. I did the edges on the 3 extra stitches and just placed a marker so I remembered to knit the edge on each row.
In addition the pattern had you bind off the top and then pick up stitches again. Um.. no on that (see above about picking up stitches rant). I knit the body of the sweater and left it on my very long needle to knit the sleeves. I used magic loop to complete the sleeves. Lucky for me I own almost all sizes and lengths of Chai Goo needles. I was able to use my shorter lengths to knit each sleeve in the round.
After the sleeves were completed I just picked up the body on the longer needles and knit everything together. I will admit I thought once I attached the sleeves I thought I must be almost done. Not so fast, as the directions included lines such as knit in these 2 rows for 10 times twice.
I semi-blocked the sweater. I got it wet in cold water and then dried it in the clothes dryer. I wanted to abuse it just a little bit. I am hard on my sweaters, especially cardigans so need them to withstand some amount of abuse. I also wanted to tighten up the gauge a little bit with some heat. The sweater took the abuse like a champ.
I have enough yarn in the same type and quantity, but different color to make another of the same pattern. It is in my queue of to be knit. The pattern designer gave a neat tip if the edging was rolling and not sitting flat to sew on grosgrain ribbon to help. I might be doing that after I wear it a few times to see if the edges ruffle.