Whole Wheat Cardigan - Finished!

I am incredibly behind in posting this cardigan. I actually finished knitting it in February, and bought the buttons for it when Social Sewing went on the Road. And then the cardigan hung in my wardrobe and the buttons in my desk drawer until a few weeks ago.

The pattern is the Whole Wheat pattern on ravelry, and you can see my previous posts about the cardigan here. I lengthened the sleeves to be 3/4 length for a bit more warmth though.

This cardigan was quite different from my first cardigan, as it was knit in pieces then seamed together. The pattern was written very differently as well, which was interesting. The miette pattern was written out line by line, but this one was written to things like 'knit until piece measures xx inches', which made me more worried about making it the right size.

I really love the lace and cables design that makes up the 'fabric'.

However the fit of the cardigan itself ended up a bit off, the shape of the sleeve head seemed wrong when I was knitting it, it seemed too flat at the time but I decided to be a good little knitter and follow the pattern. The sleeves ended up coming out a big baggy in the upper arms. I considered at one point taking the seam in to make it tighter, but after wearing it a few times I decided that I didn't care that  much.

Another issue was the shoulders being a bit wide, which I did end up fixing. As the neck band around the back was knit separately and then joined to the cardigan, I unpicked that join, unravelled an inch or so from the neck band and rejoined it, easing the top of the cardigan onto the shorter band. This narrowed the shoulders enough so it doesn't fall off my shoulders anymore.

 

It's not perfect (there are a few mistakes, that I'm not going to point out to you), but I'm pretty happy with it considering it's only my second knitted garment. 

PS: Have you seen Lizzy's beautiful version of this pattern? We started knitting these at about the same time, but she finished (and blogged) hers waaaay before me.

Whole Wheat - Help needed!

Ok, so maybe I spoke too soon yesterday when I posted about how smoothly my Whole Wheat cardigan is going. I finished off the shoulder of the left front piece and have started on the right front piece, and the centre front edge of the button band is a MESS!!

The top piece pictured is the left front - lovely and neat. The bottom piece pictured is the right front that I've just started - a red hot mess!

And I definitely can't just leave it as it is, particularly as it's the right front that's on the outside when it's buttoned up.

...so HELP!! Please?

I don't think I'm doing anything differently, the only difference I can see is that on the left (neat one) I ended the row with a knit stitch and started again with a pearl on the next row, whereas with the right (messy one) I end the row with a pearl and start again with a knit on the next row (which is what the pattern says to do). Could this be causing my problem? If so, how should I fix it?

(For reference, the button band is 9 stitches wide single rib)

Again, Help?!

Whole Wheat - Creating pieces

I've been plugging away at my Whole Wheat cardigan when I get the chance, so far I've finished all of the back piece and am about an inch off finishing the left front. Isn't it looking fantastic!? And oh so soft!

I tried being a 'good little knitter' and read through the pattern before I started, but I couldn't make head nor tail of it. However I'm happy to report that as I'm getting to each piece it's making sense (so far!)

I'm also trying to decide how long to make the sleeves - the pattern has short sleeves, but I don't think I'd get much use out of a cardigan with sleeves that long, so am considering trying to work out how to modify the pattern to make the sleeves longer - but the question is, how long?!

Whole Wheat - Gauge Swatch

After finishing my Miette Cardigan I was so happy with it that I've decided to move onto another cardigan project. So, one day after work I took another trip to Morris & Sons and exchanged the two leftover balls of yarn from my Miette and bought some lovely merinogold yarn in pale blue, to make a Whole Wheat cardigan.

When I got home I bought the pattern online, and over the weekend started knitting a gauge swatch...



This gauge swatch really highlighted the difference before and after blocking. Above is before, below is after...



I'm happy with the gauge, and even happier with the texture of the pattern!



This cardigan uses very different techniques to the Miette that I've never tried before. It's knit as flat pieces that are seamed together at the end. The pattern is also written very differently - much less 'spelled out' than the Miette. Wish me luck with working out how to do it all!