Another Finished Item

I have been slow in posting finished items, mainly as I had to take photos. Here is a cardigan I finished in September.

I purchased the yarn, Zen Yarn Garden Superfine DK, at Stitches SoCal last year specifically to knit this pattern – Comfort Fade - as they had a knitted sample at their booth which I was able to try on. It was a surprising purchase for me as I am not a fan of fades patterns but I loved the colours and I still love them knitted into my own garment. The yarn is 100% merino and is incredibly soft.

I started this on 27 January and did not finish it until the end of September but I was not working on it for all of that time. I had two very distinct breaks. Firstly, after a few days I decided it would make more sense to finish my Girl Friday and see how that fit before continuing. The sample I had tried on was too big for me and very baggy around the armholes. The other big break in knitting was after I had picked up the stitches for the collar. I knew I was going to make changes but was putting off doing it. So that was another couple of months of no knitting.

The changes I made to the collar were to work the colours in reverse order from the pattern, instead of ABCD, I worked DCBA. Also, having seen two Comfort Fades in real life, I did not like the big collar at the back of the neck and this was the reason for my procrastination, what changes did I want? In the end I started the short rows at the third section, only worked two sets, but worked the same total number of straight rows.

The other change I made was to work the bottom edging in garter stitch and not rib. This is the only place on the garment where rib appears and it looked odd to me. Also I didn’t like the way the band pulled down from the rib.