Altered Jewel cardigan - finished

Another gray sweater...
This one took a month to finish because knitting the first sleeve in one day proved to be too much for my left hand, which resulted in a two-week break from hand-knitting. The cardigan was actually completely finished and ready to wear yesterday but the gray skies outside were not conducive to taking decent pictures.



I really liked my Jewel cardigan so I used the same pattern, with only a few changes.

1. the original Jewel cardigan requires a camisole, this cardigan has a longer button band to cover the bits that need coverage - this required recalculating the neckline decreases as well as buttonhole spacing;
   
2. I added a shawl collar - this was simple: instead of decreasing the total number of stitches at the neckline, for each decrease in stockinette I added one stitch to the front band that would become the collar;
3. full-length sleeves instead of bracelet length;
4. I wanted the back more fitted at the waist - I decreased the peplum by eight stitches where back darts would usually be and then recalculated the side increases to add the eight stitches back.
   

Side view:


The yarn is sport-weight Nature Spun by Brown Sheep. I just love this yarn - it's so easy to knit, blocks beautifully, and it feels soft and warm on the skin. I have a few more cones of it in this color and a lighter gray so you'll be seeing it again :-)

Back view:


I am very happy with how this sweater turned out. I'm thinking about making it in multiple colors. One additional change I would make on future cardigans is move the buttonholes in by a stitch or two. I think it would be prettier to have more of the edge showing.

Georgie cardigan - finished

I am back in Germany for a little while, just until we make the big move to North Dakota in January.

I'd been busy arranging all sorts of things prior to leaving Florida but that did not stop me from knitting. Even the knitting injury that made me take a break from hand-knitting couldn't stop me from knitting on the machine. And so, here is my Georgie cardigan, adapted from Kim Hargreaves' book Breeze.



The yarn is Brown Sheep Co.'s Nature Spun in sport weight; the color is Evergreen - a much more vibrant shade of emerald than these pictures would lead you to believe. I love how evenly this yarn works up on the machine.

Side views, belted and unbelted (I will be wearing this belted because I like the waist definition the belt adds and also because then no other closure will be needed):



I adjusted the fronts for a slightly smaller overlap because I wanted to knit the hood in one piece, which limited it to no more than 200 needles. (I used them all.) I'd left the neckline stitches live to hang back on the machine after blocking the pieces and grafting the shoulder seams. The decreases at the center back of the hood were a royal pain because I was working without a garter bar or my 9-prong transfer tool, which meant transferring close to 200 stitches toward the center three stitches at a time. Let's just say that the hood took longer to knit than the rest of the sweater combined.



I started with 2" deep hung hems and continued in stockinette all the way up. I had originally planned to make a 1x1 ribbed band at the center front, then changed my mind after blocking the first front piece. This necessitated re-knitting that piece and coming up with a different edge treatment. I decided on crab stitch but after multiple unsatisfactory attempts I changed it to a simple row of half-double crochet stitches all around the front edges.

This was a really straight-forward project. I will wear the cardigan for a while before making another one because I want to see how I like the overlap. I'm thinking smaller overlap next time but I want to make sure.