Puff-sleeved Feminine Cardigan - done!
Knitting, knitting, I have actual FO pictures!
This one should have got done a long time ago. In fact, I completed its first iteration before I went to Portugal, and had every intention of photographing its puffed sleeves against a cathedral or red-roofed background. Alas, that version turned out way too baggy. So I took a deep breath, remembered my new year resolution to embrace the frogging, ripped it out back to the armholes and reknit it to more fitting dimensions:
People say that top-down raglans are easy to wear and check for fit as you go along, but I find that very difficult to do somehow, even with stitches slipped to a string. I certainly thought I was going for the right amount of ease the first time round, but when I bound off the sleeves and wore the finished sweater, I realised I shouldn’t have budgeted for 3 extra inches. The second one has zero ease, and surprisingly, I am much happier with the fit:
Please forgive the slightly blurry picture. For some reason hardly any of the zillion self-timered pictures I took came out crystal clear. But you can tell I am happy with the sweater, can’t you? Admittedly, my patience had waned after a while, and my face took on that long-suffering look all teachers reading this will readily recognize below, but it is a marginally more focused picture:
Okay, Specs:
Pattern: “Puff-sleeved Feminine Cardigan” from Stephanie Japel’s Fitted Knits.
Size: 38″
Yarn: Cascade 220, 3.75 skeins approx in a green heather, # 9459
I love the little waist darts in the pattern, which really allow the fabric to mould itself to the body. The other pattern I have made from this book is the Back-to-School Vest, and both have taught me to trust the “give” and ease of knitted fabric a bit more than I have done in the past, and the benefits of subtle shaping for a more flattering fit overall. The raglan sleeves and neck shaping on this cardigan are also very simple, and I enjoyed making the whole sweater. Even though the pattern has a lot of shaping, it’s easy to modify to your shape. I like Japel’s designs, and am queuing the Simple V-neck pullover from the same book.
Modifications:
1) I changed the lace peplum. The original one called for a lot of increased stitches, and I didn’t like that flare at the bottom, so I only increased enough to get the stitch count back to what it was at the chest. Also, my first version had a plain peplum with YOs for the increases, but the second time round I added YO, SSK, K2tog, YO lines uniformly across the peplum, interspersed with the single YO increases. I like the simpler gradient and lace lines.
2) I added twenty rows of stockinette at the waist to make the sweater longer by 4 inches or so. The first version was a little short and I kept pulling at it.
3) Since I had fewer stitches at the sleeves the second time, I did only two rounds of SSK decreases.
4) I knit the 7-stitch seed-stitch buttonhole panels along with the main pattern, rather than adding it later. I also made slightly bigger buttonholes since I had hoped to find large buttons for this one, but I ended up finding gorgeous, small Celtic buttons at the Blackwater Abbey stall at Stitches West, and hope my buttonholes don’t stretch too much!
All in all, I’m very happy with this one, and wore it all over the place today, even to Stash, where I impulsively went and bought something for a project (will show you next time!) and Rebekah took a picture for me against the Manos. Thankfully, the sweater is just the right mix of puff-sleeved and feminine for me to feel comfy in it.
