It feels like ages since I have finished anything. It has, in fact been ages since I started this project and what feels like eons since I wrote here. More exactly a year and half. And only half a year for this sweater.
Presenting the cozy cowl cardigan.
Pattern: Cowl Cardigan by Lisa Richardson. Pattern #7 in Mode at Rowan Collection One.
Yarn: Kid Classic color 899 Floss
I used 13 full skeins and some part of the 14th skein, but not a full half. How is that for exactitude?
My sweater is not exactly like the original. I did not get gauge, and after about 4 different attempts on various needles, I simply picked the swatch I liked the best and recalculated the pattern from there. I wanted a long cozy sweater, but I did not want it to be particularly oversized through the shoulders, and I do not like long slouchy sleeves. The sleeves were calculated to be close fitting at my wrist and to be exactly the right length for me. I never thought of my wrists as being that tiny, but the pattern, as written would have had been quite loose.
I love the combination of the stitches, garter stitch and double moss stitch and the way the texture of the sweater added depth and richness to the color of the yarn, which appeared very pale in the skein, at least to these eyes.
The pattern stitches were slow-going though, although interesting, and tedious to seam. Particularly tedious was mattress stitch on the garter-stitch sleeves, simply because there were so many rows. Alas. I do find seaming relaxing though even though this sweater took a particularly long time.
Before seaming the sides of the body and sleeves however I had to join the sleeves to the body. Given the difference in the stitches of the two pieces, and their differing gauges, I used back stitch to sew the sleeves to the body of the sweater. I do love back stitch, even in fine fabrics, and think I could happily sit for hours and hours doing back stitch and never tiring. Well, that is probably an exaggeration.
Although I feared that I would not finish this sweater in time to wear it this year, and I did not finish it until Mid-March, the weather has cooperated and I have worn it a few times (see photos above). In fact even though I am writing this on April 2nd, the temperatures have dipped back down into the 40s and I am wearing this cozy sweater as I write and I may wear it when I go out for my morning walk.
I might have finished sooner had I not messed up the cowl twice, although I left the second mistake intact. If you look closely you will see that I knitted in a full twist rather than a half-twist. I can live with that and it suits me. The first time I knit the cowl I had no twist at all and had to rip the whole thing out. Given my own version of left-right dyslexia, and the general confusion it engenders when trying to twist anything in the round, I am more than content.
In fact now I am so content that I want only to knit or sew things I am going to wear from here on out. Well, I am sure that motivation will wane, and I am not going to strip my closet bare. But let’s just see what happens, shall we?
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