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?
