Knitting: a pretty pink cardigan (King Cole 3541)

We're drifting into late August and heading rapidly towards the autumn so, in the grand tradition of my knitting habits, obviously it's the perfect time to have just finished knitting a very summery cardigan. The temperatures will hopefully still be appropriate for a short-sleeved cotton cardi for a little while though, so I'm going to wear it as much as possible before longer sleeves have to make their seasonal reappearance.

The pattern that I chose to use for this summer's knitting project is King Cole 3541, which features the short-sleeved round neck cardigan that I made and a long-sleeved V neck option. Both of the cardigans have the same cable panel running up the centre fronts and down the middle of the sleeves.

I have to admit that I was slightly daunted at first by the 28-row repeat for the cable panel. I've tackled cables quite happily before, but in simpler patterns and with a smaller number of rows in the repeat so you quickly memorise the pattern. While I don't think I ever completely memorised the cable repeat in this case, I got the basic idea of what I needed to knit in my head fairly quickly. There wasn't anything to be scared of in the cables and I didn't have any problems with knitting the panel as long as I always had the pattern leaflet by my side to consult.

By the time I'd finished knitting the back and fronts and was moving on to the sleeves, I was feeling a bit lazy and wanted to get the cardigan finished quicker so I considered leaving the cable panels out of the sleeve and just knitting them in stocking stitch, but I'm glad that in the end I opted to include the cables. It definitely made knitting the sleeves more interesting, and I think it's a nice detail to have the cables from the fronts mirrored in the sleeves. When I've knitted long-sleeved cardigans I always slightly dread the sleeves because they seem to take forever, but these short sleeves were finished in no time by comparison.

I made the size based on my bust measurement, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. The cardigan has 2 inches of positive ease, and I think it's just the right level of being fitted enough to be flattering without it being so tight that the button bands end up gaping when they're done up. The cardigan has also turned out to be the perfect length to wear with all my waisted dresses, which is always good.

The yarn I used is the King Cole Cottonsoft as called for in the pattern, and I used colour 712 Rose. I haven't always enjoyed knitting with 100% cotton yarn in the past (memorably when I knitted some baby hats in 100% cotton yarn a few years ago, my mum told me she thought they'd make better dish cloths!), but I didn't have any problems with this yarn. It was good to knit with, and the finished cardigan is nice and soft to wear, but also feels like it will wear well. Which is good when you've put so much time into making something!

All in all, this cardigan is definitely a winner for me - not least because it goes really nicely with quite a few of my summery dresses (I'm wearing it here with my original New Look 6723 dress that I made a couple of years ago). I enjoyed knitting the cardigan and I'm tempted to have a go at a long-sleeved V neck option at some point. Who knows when that will be though because I've already got a list as long as my arm of knitting patterns to try! Next in the queue is a shawl, and I'm thinking of casting on my first pair of socks too. What are you knitting at the moment?

Jaeger Handknits Turin Cardigan (and a bonus Emery dress)

As has become fairly standard for me, I've just finished knitting what was meant to be a winter cardigan right in time for a rise in temperatures which means it'll probably mostly sit in a drawer until autumn. I'm not the only one that does that am I?! You'd have thought that I might have got better at estimating how long a project will take me more accurately by now, but apparently not!

Anyway, the pattern I used is the Turin cardigan by Martin Storey which is part of a Jaeger Handknits pattern booklet that I found a while ago in a charity shop. There are 20 patterns in the book and, while some are definitely a bit dated, there are a number of others that I'd like to knit at some point so it was well worth whatever I paid for it (I can't remember how much that was, but it may even have been as little as 49p given the shop I got it from!).

The Turin is a relatively short cardigan - slightly longer than cropped, but shorter than most others still - which is a good length for me. It features stripes of a pretty lace pattern, which is also intended to have a bead in the middle of each lace diamond but I didn't like the idea of beads (I know what I'm like - I'd get them caught on everything!) so I left them out.

The sleeves are also meant to use the same lace pattern but, as I mentioned in my post about my previous cardigan, I'm not much of a fan of lace sleeves so I just knit these in plain stocking stitch.

The pattern was simple and easy to follow, and uses my preferred construction method of knitting the individual pieces and then seaming them. The lace pattern is worked over 10 rows and needed a bit of concentration to start off with, but it gradually worked its way into my memory so I could relax into the knitting a bit more.

The yarn that I used is Stylecraft Special 4-ply in the shade Lipstick. It's definitely not the most luxurious yarn in the world, but it's very budget friendly and I've liked using it for crochet so I wanted to see how it would fare when it came to knitting. On balance, I like it less for knitting but it's OK still. I also wanted to try using an acrylic yarn because I find my wool cardigans very itchy unless I've got long sleeves under them so they don't get worn unless it's really cold. I definitely don't have that problem with this yarn, but I'm not sure I'd use it for a whole garment again. We'll wait and see how it wears until I make a final decision on that though.

The dress that I'm wearing with the cardigan in these photos is the latest in my collection of Emery dresses. It probably doesn't warrant a blog post of its own because at this point I don't really have anything new to say about this pattern, but I thought it still deserved to be documented. The fabric for this one is from the Melody Miller Jubilee collection for Cotton & Steel, and I got it from The Village Haberdashery. Unsurprisingly, I love how it turned out - the combination of a pretty print and a trusted pattern was always going to be a winner for me!

It's a happy coincidence that I happened to finish these two projects at pretty much the same time because they look great together. For once, the slowness of my knitting actually resulted in something good! Next up on my knitting needles will be a short-sleeved cotton cardigan. Let's see if I can finish it before summer's over!

Knitting - Patons 3769 Classic Knits cardigan

Today it's time for a quick break from all the sewing to share my latest finished knitting project - a cardigan knit using Patons leaflet 3769.

The pattern leaflet has quite a few different options that you can combine to make just the style that you want - a cardigan or waistcoat, different body and sleeve lengths, a range of stitch patterns and lace trim options. In spite of all of those possibilities, I still went a bit off piste and although the cardigan I knitted is very close to the pattern, it's not exactly the same as any of the versions in the leaflet.

The main change I made was to knit a cardigan that is mid-way between the regular length and cropped length specified in the pattern. This has given me a cardi that's the perfect length for wearing with my customary fit and flare style dresses. 

I originally intended to use the purl stitch rib stitch pattern, but when I started knitting there didn't seem to be great stitch definition with the yarn that I was using and it all just looked a bit of a mess. So I ripped it all back, and switched to one of the lace patterns included in the leaflet.

At this point I should probably mention, in case you're thinking of using the pattern, that the lace stitch patterns are labelled the wrong way round in the photos. Thankfully, while I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, I've knit enough lace in the past that I worked that out before I started. 

I chose the clover lace for my second attempt, but when I started knitting it felt like the repeats of the lace pattern were too close together and that I'd end up with a cardigan that was more holes than yarn. I decided to rip back again and restart the same pattern, but adding two extra rows of stocking stitch between each sequence of lace. Thankfully it was third time lucky and I was happy with that stitch pattern. 

Another change I made was to knit the sleeves in plain stocking stitch instead of using the lace pattern. That's just a personal preference because I sometimes feel like when I'm wearing a cardi with lace sleeves, the holes in the lace somehow seem to funnel the air onto my arms and make my arms feel colder than they would without a cardi on, which sort of defeats the point really! Am I weird or does anyone else have that problem?!

The yarn I used is Bergere de France Sonora, the same yarn that I used for my last cardigan, but this time in the colour Vapeur. It's a cotton and acrylic mix, which I really like - I think the acrylic content makes it feel more hardwearing than the pure cotton yarns I've used in the past. It's nice to knit with and comfy to wear and, just to make it even better, I got a complete bargain when I bought this (I think because the colour might have been discontinued). 

In terms of sizing, the finished measurements that I wanted are right between the small and the medium from the pattern. When I knit my tension swatch, the width was fractionally larger than it should have been. I did some calculations and worked out that if I knit the small with my slightly different tension then it should turn out to be pretty much the exact size I wanted. Possibly a bit of a gamble, but my maths must have been accurate that day because the fit turned out just right. 

Thankfully, after making all of those changes along the way, I'm really happy with how this cardigan turned out. Its just the right length for wearing with my dresses, and is a colour that will get a lot of use in my wardrobe. It is a kind of summery cardigan, but it's also warm enough that it's still going to be worn a lot this autumn. Now it's time to cast on a more wintery cardi! Are you knitting anything at the moment?

Pretty pink cardigan

How are you today? All good I hope? Things aren't too shabby here - I've got a little pile of pretty fabric waiting to be sewn, I'm enjoying taking part in Me Made May for the first time (I'm posting my outfits on Instagram if you're interested), and at the weekend I finished and instantly wore my latest knitting project, which I'm here to show you today.

This is a combination of two patterns. In essence, it's the Regan cardigan from the Rowan Softknit Collection (which I picked up in the John Lewis sale for £2 - gotta love a bargain).

I liked the shape of the cardigan, but the whole thing is just plain stocking stitch and I fancied something a little different. I then found one of my Granny's old vintage patterns for a cardigan which looked a bit dated overall (think MASSIVE collar), but had a simple-but-effective stitch pattern. So I combined the basic Regan cardigan with the vintage stitch pattern on the front and back pieces, and this is the result.

The stitch pattern is nothing complicated - all it involves is purling every 4th stitch on the knit rows (row 1 is k1, (p1, k3) to the end, and row 3 is k3, (p1, k3) to the end). It may be simple, but I really like the almost dotty, textured effect that it produces.

I recently found The Knitting Stitch Bible in a charity shop (I told you I love a bargain!), and it has a stitch called small broken stocking stitch which is very similar, just with the purl stitches spaced slightly further apart than mine are.

The yarn I used is Beregere de France Sonora, a cotton and acrylic blend which I picked up on offer (did I mention that I love a bargain?!) from Love Knitting. I think it may have been discontinued, which is a shame because I found that it knit up really well and it's lovely to wear too. In fact, I like it so much that I'm already knitting another cardigan using a different shade of the same yarn!

The shade I used here is called Balsamine, which is a lovely pale dusky pink colour. It's getting a bit bleached out by the sun in these photos, and is definitely more pink in real life. Over the weeks that I had this sitting on my lap as I knitted, I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the dresses I was wearing it goes with - definitely a good indication that it'll get worn a lot.

I knit the cardigan in size M - I'm at the upper end of the size range and the cardigan fits me nicely with a little bit of positive ease, so it would definitely be worth thinking about sizing down if you're at the smaller end of the size range or if you like a more fitted look.

The Regan pattern is really good for a basic cardigan. I think it would be great for newbie knitters wanting to try their first garment, or equally for a nice relaxing project if you have a bit more experience.

As you've probably guessed, I'm really pleased with how this has turned out, and I'd definitely use this pattern again as a way to test out some of the other stitch patterns in The Knitting Stitch Bible. Have you got any knitting projects on the go? And do you like bargain hunting as much as I do?!

Knitting: vintage cardigan

Earlier this year, my Uncle passed down all my Granny's old knitting patterns to me. There are some that are definitely very dated (part of me is very tempted to knit a particularly ugly "helmet" to embarrass my nephew when he's older, but realistically I think it would be a waste of both time and wool), but there are also plenty that are very wearable still. The first one I decided to knit was actually one of the plainest, this round neck cardigan...

It's from a Patons & Baldwins raglan twin sets pattern booklet. I'm not interested in the full twin set with the jumper, but a waist-length cardigan is something that is always going to get a lot of use in my wardrobe, so I set to work.

Unsurprisingly, the yarn used in the pattern has long-since been discontinued, but I rarely use the precise recommended yarn for a pattern anyway so that didn't bother me. I chose to use West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply in Blueberry Bonbon from the Sweet Shop range. It was a lovely yarn to work with and, now that I've worn the cardigan a couple of times, I'm pleased to report that it's nice and warm without being at all scratchy or irritating to my skin.

This is the cardigan knit exactly according to the pattern. I did originally intend to borrow a stitch pattern from one of my Granny's other patterns to make it slightly more interesting than a load of stocking stitch, but there's dart shaping coming up from the waist in the front and back panels and keeping the pattern correct across the darts was going to cause me a headache so I abandoned that plan. Keeping it simple made this a really good mindless knitting project for working on in front of the TV, and I think plainer cardigans are totally fine because most of the time I'm wearing them with a highly patterned dress!

You may have noticed that I haven't done the buttons the whole way up the cardigan in any of these photos. That's partly because of the collar of my dress getting in the way, but even more than that, it's because doing all the buttons up would involve strangling myself! The neck does look high on the pattern photo, but it turned out even higher and tighter than that on me. It doesn't really bother me because the cardigan works fine with only the lower buttons done up anyway.

Neck aside, I'm pretty happy with the fit of the cardigan. When I first put the cardigan on, I thought the sleeves might be a touch short, but having worn it now I think they're actually fine. It's a great length for wearing with all my full-skirted dresses, and I think the amount of ease is just right - it's nicely fitted without being too tight and putting strain on the buttonband.

Speaking of buttons, finding them was a bit of a saga! I wanted to get coordinating buttons because, as there are a lot of them, I thought contrasting buttons would dominate the cardigan a bit too much. Unfortunately, much though I love the colour of the yarn, it appears that button manufacturers don't agree with me because I couldn't find any that matched. In the end, I opted for these little clear ones that have just a hint of greeny blue in them, so work well with the yarn colour without taking over.

All in all, I really like how this cardigan turned out and I think it'll do a good job of keeping me cosy. I'd definitely be tempted to use this pattern and yarn again (I love pretty much all of the Sweet Shop shades), but now I have some Christmas-related knitting I need to get on with first. Are you making any presents this year?

Knitting: Clementine Cardigan

I've managed to achieve something quite rare for me - I've finished a knitting project in time to wear it while it's still seasonally appropriate! Please tell me I'm not the only one who usually struggles to do that?! I gave myself a self-imposed deadline of the end of June to finish knitting it, which admittedly I didn't quite meet, but early July is close enough for me.

This cardigan is called Clementine and it was designed by Sarah Hatton for issue 99 of Knit Today. I only buy knitting magazines if there's something on the cover that catches my eye, and this pattern did exactly that (plus there was also a picture of a jumper covered in intarsia stars which I'm definitely keeping in mind for a future project).

It's designed to be worn with a small amount of positive ease, but I like cardigans to be slightly more fitted. Thankfully for me I fell between two sizes, so I just went with the smaller one and the fit turned out pretty much exactly how I wanted.

The cardigan is knit using cotton yarn, which obviously makes it summer-appropriate, but unfortunately I don't have a great track record of knitting with 100% cotton (the last time I tried it, my Mum helpfully told me that the baby hat that I'd knitted would make a good dish cloth!). Because of that I went with a cotton blend and used King Cole Bamboo Cotton DK in Fuchsia.

On the subject of the colour, I'm sorry if it's hurting your eyeballs here - on my laptop it looks the pretty fuchsia shade that it actually is, but I've just looked at the photos on another screen which is showing the cardigan as a particularly garish neon pink for some reason. Odd.

Anyway, the yarn was nice to knit with. I found it a little bit prone to splitting when casting on, but other than that it was fine and the finished cardigan feels lovely to wear. And my Mum hasn't said it could be a dish cloth so I'm calling that a success!

The cardigan is knit in sections and them seamed, which at the moment is my preferred method. I like the idea of cardigans knit seamlessly on circular needles, but the only time I've tried it (my Cria cardigan), I kept getting really sore wrists so I think maybe there's something about the way I hold circular needles that my wrists don't like. Does anyone else have that problem? I'll give it another try at some point (if nothing else, I need a Chickadee cardigan still!), but at the moment I'm sticking to what I know works.

This was my first time knitting any kind of lace pattern, and I was pleasantly surprised by how straightforward it was. I'd always imagined that it would be really complicated but it was easy to get the hang of.

I did end up having to knit most of my first front piece twice because I dropped some stitches in the lace section, and they managed to unravel so far down that I couldn't tell quite what was going on anymore so decided it would be best just to frog it and start that section again. I think it actually may have been a blessing in disguise because the lace panel came out neater second time around anyway. Practice makes perfect after all!

I'm really pleased with this cardigan - both in terms of how it looks and, possibly more importantly, because of the fact that I finished it in time to actually wear it this summer. I'm now trying to decide what to knit next - I inherited all my Granny's old knitting patterns recently and there are some nice cardigans I'd like to try, but part of me thinks I should be good and finish the socks I started and got bored of before this cardigan. Which would you choose?

Little Red in the City Cria Cardigan

If you saw my OWOP post, you'll have already caught a sneak peek of this project (and the photos of it will look very similar to my OWOP day 1 outfit!). I'm taking a little break from talking about sewing today, and switching to knitting and more specifically my Cria cardigan.

The pattern is by Ysolda Teague, and is the first one that I've tackled from the lovely book Little Red in the City. All of the patterns in the book are gorgeous, but I chose to be sensible and knit this pattern first because I'm still a relatively inexperienced knitter, and I'd never knit anything using the top down seamless method on circular needles, and this seemed like it would probably be the simplest of the patterns for trying out those skills and getting used to them. There's some lovely cabling and colourwork in the other patterns in the book, which I'll definitely be trying out at some point, but I thought the simpler details of the Cria would be more within my reach at the moment.

The Cria has a garter stitch yoke and edgings, with stocking stitch sleeves and main body. The book features long and short sleeved versions - obviously I went for the short sleeves as I wanted this to be a light summery cardigan. My version is also a couple of inches shorter than the version in the pattern because I wanted it to be waist length to go over my summer dresses. To get the shorter length, I just measured the length of that I wanted it to be down my back and stopped knitting at that point - a definite advantage of the top down method! The pattern in the book also has front pockets, but I chose to leave them off because of having a shorter length, and also because I didn't think I'd use them, and by the time I got to the point where I'd have to add them in, getting it finished quicker seemed more appealing than adding the pockets if they were really only going to be decorative. Possibly a bit lazy, but I don't miss the pockets at all so I'm happy I made that decision.

The knitting didn't go completely smoothly, and this is actually my third attempt! The first attempt was pulled apart fairly quickly after I'd been a bit uneven when picking up stitches along the shoulder pieces during the yoke setup. The second attempt got quite a bit further, probably further than it should have done to be honest! I was almost finished the yoke section when I realised that I hadn't been doing the make one stitches quite right (entirely due to my own stupidity rather than anything wrong with the pattern or instructions), and that was why I had holes forming at the edge of the sleeves. I considered soldiering on and just darning the holes closed, but I knew I wouldn't be happy with that, so I ripped the whole thing apart (not a happy process!) and started again. Thankfully it was third time lucky (apart from hurting my wrist at one point meaning I couldn't knit for a week or two), but all this did mean that I finished it much later than I originally wanted to. Never mind, better to take my time and do a good job than rush to get things finished by my self-imposed deadlines!

I used Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk 4 ply in Vanilla, which I got from Black Sheep Wools - yes, I realise it's meant for babies, which I clearly am not, but it's a super soft yarn and the finished cardigan feels lovely to wear.

I originally wanted to use some pearly buttons, but I couldn't find any in a colour that looked quite right with the yarn so I decided to go with wooden buttons instead to keep things neutral. I did have to laugh when I was looking at buttons, and was briefly wondering about going down a completely different route and using strawberry buttons and a lady standing next to me told me not to because "if you use those, they try to eat them", obviously thinking I was going to use the buttons on something for a child - I didn't like to tell her they were for me, and hopefully I can be trusted not to eat buttons by now!

So there we go, that's my Cria cardigan! It's not faultless, there are little imperfections here and there, but they're not very noticeable if you don't know where they are. And even though I know where they are, I really don't mind them - I'm definitely still learning and knitting this cardigan taught me a lot, which is always good. I'm glad I persevered and ended up with a very wearable cardi at the end of the day. I'm now trying to master the art of intarsia for a jumper I want to make this winter, but I'm looking forward to trying some of the other Little Red in the City patterns at some point, if nothing else, I NEED a Chickadee in my life! Have you been doing any knitting lately? 

Shawl collar cardigan

This cardigan has been an on-and-off (mostly off!) knitting project for well over two years now. I've knitted other things in between, but after I finished my polo neck tank top in the autumn, I told myself that I wasn't allowed to start any other big knitting projects until this was finished. I'm adding more and more cute patterns to my to-knit list all the time and I wanted to get this finished so I could move on to something more exciting, so I'm very pleased that it's now done!

The main reason why this stayed a WIP for so long is because, truth be told, I was never completely in love with the pattern. I bought the pattern and yarn together in a kit from The Knitting Shop because the kit was reduced and a really good price and because this looked like something that my limited knitting skills could handle. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it by any means - it's a nice cosy cardi, I like the colour, and I know I'll wear it, it's just it's a bit boring and I'd probably prefer something that's a little bit more fitted than this pattern is designed to be. 

But on the plus side, I've got a new cardigan to keep me warm and I was right about it being something that my knitting skills could handle. This is all just stocking stitch with a bit of ribbing round the edges so nothing complicated at all. I think it was good for me to knit something like this that I could definitely cope with, but now I'm ready for more challenging things! And I've also learnt the lesson not to start knitting something unless I really like the pattern!

The pattern is Wendy Skye pattern 5495, and I used Wendy Skye DK yarn in Fir, which is a poly/acrylic/mohair blend. It was nice to work with, and I like the blend of colours and the effect that the yarn produces when knitted up. 

When I actually picked it up and got round to working on it, it was mostly quite quick to knit. In 2 years, I'd only managed to knit about half of the back, then I knit the rest of the back, the 2 front pieces and the arms relatively quickly over Christmas and at the start of the year. Then I hit a bit of a wall again when it came to picking up 357 stitches around the button band and collar! It was a bit of a tedious process, but the collar turned out nicely so it was all worth it in the end.

Speaking of the collar, here's a photo to prove that it does sit nicely and it's not always in the weird half-turned-up position that it's in for some of these photos. Not sure what happened there, but it started raining (again!) before I could take some more with the collar in the right position, but at least it looks nice in the close-up.

I decided that neutral buttons would work best with all the colours going on in this cardigan, and I love these cute little wooden flower buttons. I found them in Millie Moon on a recent trip to Frome. I could spend a fortune in that shop - it's very dangerous!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I'm glad this is finally finished, I like it but don't love it, and I'm now looking forward to knitting something else. I got Little Red in the City for Christmas, and I love all of the patterns in there, so my only dilemma is which to knit first - not a bad problem to have!