10/11/2014

I spent the day at Stitches East yesterday, saw tons of beautiful things. I managed to restrain myself, didn’t buy very much. But I yearned for something new! So I decided to shop from my stash, and found this Great yarn to make a new Ribby Cardi. I love the color of this Dream in Color yarn!

I’m swatching now/today, will measure theyn wash then measure again to understand the characteristics. Starting with a size 6 for ribbing, size 7 for the stockinette.

I’m making size 36, my upper bust measurement. I’ll plan to add a minimum of 2” length with short rows in the front, may do up to 4” short rows, will need to measure again and check my notes from Connie’s class on bust adjustments. Will also need 2” in the upper back, so need to do those short rows too, in pattern, which will be interesting if possible.

More as things progress.

10/12/2014 Happy Birthday to me!

Flattened unstretched swatch measures 8” wide and 7” tall. Stitch gauge is off by about 1/2 stitch in 4”; I’m going to use suggested needle sizes.

I cast on the back, long tail cast on, in pattern (follow pattern of RS row). Knit a double mock cable, twisting each RS row, 3-1 rib. Will place lifeline and then start rest of the back, still using same mock cable but will put an additional RS row between the twists. Apparently I’ve decided to be a complete masacist, because I’ll do the entire back in the 3-1 double mock cable, elongated style. We’ll have to see how it turns out!

10/31/2014 - Happy Halloween!

Added new Picts showing compressed mock cable over 3 stitches (bottom ribbing) and the elongated version (main part of back).

Will knit an additional 2” before starting sleeve shaping on the back.

I forgot to alternate two skeins of this beautiful but non-uniformly colored yarn. So as I was running out of the first skein, I have started the 2 nd skein, and will do two rows old yarn two rows new yarn until the old yarn runs out. I hope this will blend the differences between the skeins and make the transition less Noticeable .

11/3/2014

Finished and cast off the back. I added 4 sets of short rows over the last 6” or so to help with my hump.

I plan to knit both left and right fronts at the same time, but am swatching to see if I can figure out the iCord edging on both centers of the cardigan.

I will continue with the mock cable for ribbing, then switch to stockingette for main body of front.

11/19/2014
Hopefully, third time is a charm! I cast on the fronts, and knit 6” before I realized the i cord wasn’t working at all. Tore it all out, tried again, same problem. So ripped all out, got some different up yarn, and did some test swatching. Third time cast on the fronts, and things are going well this time.

Will be working on it while I’m away next week.

12/11/2014
Well, I finally finished the two fronts, third time was the charm! Cast on the sleeves, also three different times, essentially using them as a swatch for the ribbing to use on the cuffs. Finally found what I liked, as the sleeve rubbing is different than the other rubbings in the sweater its 2X2 ribbing instead of 3X2.

But am making progress on the sleeves, just starting the increases.

12/26/2014
Finished the sleeves, but had to go to Webs to get another hank of yarn, the one hank that was a brassier color I was saving for the neckband collar and front zipper bands. It was too different for me to use to finish a sleeve. I went through all my leftovers from other pieces and used them all. I considered knitting from both ends of the ball, but didn’t want things to get tangled.

So I went to Webs, got another hank that goes pretty well, and finished the sleeves. Now I need to block the pieces, plus the pieces from another sweater that’s ready to be blocked before sewing together. So hopefully will get to the blocking soon.

1/1/2015 - Happy New Year!
I’ve finished blocking the back of this sweater (see pictures) and have the sleeves on the blocking board now. Next, block the fronts, and sew together before doing the collar.

1/9/2015
Finally got the fronts blocked, see picture. Because I did bust short rows as marked with the little colored elastics, I stuffed the bust area while it was blocking to give it the right shape.

Once off the blocking board I will set aside some time and start sewing the pieces together.

2/8/2015
Pieces are sewn together. I added an additional row of I-cord to the fronts to help stabilize it. Got the Grosgrain ribbon color sampler, so need to pick a color and order the ribbon while I figure out the zipper situation.

3/1/2015
Finally chose a ribbon color and zipper. Everything is all sewn in and DONE! It looks great on me, fits really well!

This a replacement for this earlier knit sweater (that is WAY too big now).