Notes on issues with the pattern and modifications made can be found below - overall, I wasn’t very impressed with the pattern

Camp Loopy 2013 - Project One

1 Jun, 1 sec past midnight - And so it begins! I hadn’t planned on being up at midnight to cast on, but I got so deeply involved in a grading spreadsheet that when I next looked up, I realized I almost had already. So, I figured, what the heck? I did manage to remember to swatch in advance (although the swatch wasn’t quite dry, it was dry enough to make sure I had gauge). I was a bit worried about the yarn I picked - it’s really thin for a fingering weight. But I made it work for the gauge square.

The pattern choice I made turned out to be prophetic, as this week we added not one but two new kittens to our family - Periwinkle (Peri) and Samurai (Sammy). So this project is named after not just the pattern, but in honor of them.

1 Jun, 10:24 pm - End of day 1! Made more progress than the picture shows because of how the stockinette is rolling up; I’m about halfway to the sleeve split out. Wanted to get a bit further, but it was an exciting day at the Camp Loopy French Open - darn John Isner and his marathon matches screwing up my tension!

4 Jun, 12:06 am - Didn’t get as much done this weekend as I would have liked, although I swore off any work knitting. However, I’ve reached the end of the raglan increases. I’m a bit concerned because based on a quick and dirty measurement, I’ve got another inch to go before I can split out the sleeves, and I’m supposed to just work even. Hopefully that won’t lead to sleeves that tend to bind. But on the plus side, I’m at the point where I’ll never have more stitches than I have now!

6 Jun, 9:42 pm - Didn’t get any work done on this the last 2 days, because I was focusing on a design sample. However, today was spent taking care of a very sick son with a stomach bug severe enough the doctor and I had to talk about possibly heading to the hospital. Fortunately, we were able to get enough liquids to stay down and get his fever under control so we didn’t have to take that step. And, because that wasn’t enough stress, we found a bunch of mystery water on the basement floor. Fortunately, a plus to base housing is that all we had to do was move our stuff out of the danger area and call maintenance - they found the leak, fixed the broken pipe, and even cleaned it all up. So after all that, I’m relaxing tonight with some Camp Loopy knitting and a homebrew!

9 Jun, 11:31 pm - Delayed working on this for a bit because I knew I had to put it on waste yarn, and I was dreading the thought of getting all those little stitches on waste yarn and then back on the needle. Once I did, my fears were confirmed: I was past the 6” of armhole that the pattern called for, but I was going to need about another inch. So, back on the needles, knit another inch, and then finally bound off the sleeves (see notes below) and got started on the bottom half. First lace repeat done!

15 Jun, 7:56 pm - At the halfway point of the month, I am definitely more than halfway done with the knitting…but I’m beginning to worry a bit about having enough yarn to make this long enough and do the crochet edging. I should have more than enough - the pattern calls for 500 yds and my skein has 546 - but all I can do now is keep knitting. The pattern says to knit to 9” and bind off, but I’m at 11” - and if I bound off now the proportions would look bad because I had to knit 7” of stockinette for a comfortable fitting armscye. Hopefully, my yarn will hold out for 3” more of lace!

At least I certainly enjoyed my knitting today - Camp Loopy went to the Washington Brewers Festival! Knitting and beer - one of my favorite combos!

20 Jun, 10:15 pm - Knitting is complete! The pattern called for knitting until the piece measured 8” for the size 6. But that makes no sense - the pattern calls for 6” armholes before starting the lace section, which would mean a 2” lace section. That doesn’t match the sample pictures on the pattern at all, so I think maybe what it means is to knit until the lace section measures 8”. Unfortunately, the pattern doesn’t include measurements, so it’s hard to tell. At any rate, I chose to knit to 14”, which is still a cropped cardigan on Lexie. Now on to the crocheted edging…

23 Jun, 3:21 pm - Blocking day at Camp Loopy! The crocheted edging went very quickly…although I almost went too quickly. I was celebrating being done when I finished the edging on the fronts and neck, and then held it up and realized I hadn’t done the sleeves yet. But that’s done (with, of course, more modifications!), and as much as I wasn’t impressed with the pattern, I do think the outcome is an adorable sweater that Lexie will look beautiful in. I’ll be making one last mod - adding hook and eye fasteners on the fronts. Several people have reported that the fronts flap on unattractively if the sweater is just closed by the ribbon.

25 Jun, 4:08 pm - Done, with 5 days to spare! Took a quick trip to Jo-Ann to buy fasteners of some sort and ribbon. I decided to go with decorative clasps instead of hook and eye fasteners because I liked the look of them, and picked out a green ribbon to go with the flowers on the dress she’s wearing. Lexie’s also picked out a pink and a light purple ribbon to change it up. Got the clasps sewn on today, and we were ready for our close up!

#Pattern issues / modifications

• I found the way the pattern was written to be confusing at points. In the Neck Shaping section, it gave instructions for a “first increase row” and “the next 2 increase rows,” and then it said to continue working in this manner until there are 7 sts before the first marker. However, once those 3 increase rows are done, there already are 7 sts before the first marker. At that point, move on to the next instruction.

• The row that instructs you to add 10 sts at the beginning and end says not to increase in the first and last sts, but doesn’t mention what you should be doing with the rest of the row. Continue with the raglan increases. Also, I prefer to inc at the beginning of a row with a knitted cast on, rather than increasing at the end of a row, so I increased at the beginning of that row and then at the beginning of the next RS row instead.

• The pattern does not give a row gauge. Regardless, since the pattern gave a distance to knit to before splitting out the sleeves, I’m not sure a difference in row gauge would have been the reason I wasn’t able to split them out at that distance. 6” simply wasn’t enough for an armhole for my daughter. I needed to knit about another 1” straight before splitting out.

• Rather than putting the sleeves on waste yarn and then coming back to them just to work a single row of bind off stitches, I bound them off as I split them out using a short row. I knit across the sleeve stitches, then wrapped and turned and bound off from the wrong side. That put the yarn back where I needed it to cast on the underarm stitches and continue. I think doing the short rows also helped keep a gap from forming where the sleeve and bottom stitches meet.

• I used stitch markers in the lace section - after tinking back the same lace row 4 times, I needed a quick way to make sure I’d worked the right number of stitches. Doing one thing 4 times and then something else 3 times kept throwing me off, but markers kept me on track and made that row a lot quicker.

• Pattern calls for knitting the sweater for 8” and then binding off, but as I had to knit 7” of stockinette to get a large enough armscye, if I stopped at 8” the sweater proportions would be completely off. And actually, even if I’d followed the pattern, which called for 6” armholes before starting the lace, knitting to 8” would have meant only a 2” lace section. That doesn’t look anything like the sample pictured on the pattern, so I’m wondering if when it says “until the piece measures 8” what they really mean is until the lace section measures 8”, for 14” total. Can’t be sure, because the pattern doesn’t include any measurements. So I’m looking to knit about 14” total before binding off…and hoping my yarn holds out!

• Used size G crochet hook.

• Made a slight mod to the scallop edging; I worked DCs instead of HDCs, and I also spaced them closer together than the pattern called for. The pattern said to leave 2 stitches between the HDC cluster and the slip stitch; I did put 2 rows between on the fronts but only 1 stitch on the neck and sleeves. Otherwise, the scallop got pulled too flat.