I couldn’t wait to do a pattern test for Torun, of her lovely Ivy Green Wrap.
From the first time she shared a pic, I knew I wanted to make it!

It deserved to be made with a really nice yarn but I didn’t have quite enough of any one colour in my stash. Then I remembered a cardigan I asked someone at work to make me years ago.

A new woman at work kept boasting how fast she could make cardigans and jumpers - but hated sewing them up. She agreed to make me a cardigan and I spent ages searching for a pattern with minimal sewing. I found a neck down design with not one single stitched seam! I even bought some pure merino in a half price sale.

It took her 18 months to finish it…. - and she had made the wrong size and messed up on the button hole band!
I put it in a bag and forgot it. For 6 years!
But I got it out and unpicked it - and you know, it felt like I was unpicking her out of my life!

I coupled it with some Stylecraft Bellisima.

The pattern suggests using a 3.5 mm hook but my yarn is really fat and bouncy and after making several swatches, I settled on a 5 mm hook for the tapestry panel and a 4.5 mm hook for the side panels.
I also needed to decrease 2 stitches per repeat on the side panels, which I did on row 2 so they wouldn’t show.

Once I almost reached the contrast row, I stopped and stitched in all the ends, as I didn’t want the fringe. I worked the last treble row all the way round, including the short edges. Then I worked the rows with the contrast colour but found when I switched back to trebles on the short edges, I needed to work more decreases to keep those edges flat.
I made another adjustment to the border, as my wrap was coming out bigger due to my thicker yarn but i was happy with how it turned out.