A Simple Cardigan

This is a project that has been on the needles for a number of months. Probably from the end of June but I did not make a note of the exact start date. When I left Calgary, Myrna gave me some of her hand spun which she very nicely said reminded her of me.



To show case the lovely colours, I knew I would want to knit with a loose gauge and a shawl would not do justice to the yarn or any design I chose. I looked at a number of cardigan patterns and knew that I would have to make my own design.



I swatched. To get some idea of how the yarn looked on larger needles as well as to obtain gauge.
Firstly I knitted the waistband sideways, with the yarn doubled for stability. Every row started with a slip stitch to make picking up stitches easier. I knitted until it fit but left the stitches live; 1) in case I changed my mind about the design; 2) as I had not made up my mind about the type of fastening I wanted.

Still using the yarn double, I picked up a stitch in every slipped stitch and purled a row, on the next row using single yarn, I knit into every stitch twice by knitting into each strand of yarn. After that it was plain stocking stitch with garter stitch front bands and working some decreases inside the bands. I cast on stitches for the sleeves and worked raglan decreases and continued to decrease at front edges but less often. When there were just the 4 edge stitches left on the front I worked a few rows garter stitch for the neck and cast off.

At this point I had to make a decision as to to if I liked the cardigan so far. I had got this far without cutting the yarn so I would still be able to take it apart without losing any yarn. I continued.

Firstly I had to decide on the fastening at the waistband. I sewed 5 small buttons on one side and chained loop fastenings on the other.

I then joined the yarn to the stitches cast on for each sleeve. As I wanted to use up every bit of yarn, the sleeves were worked at the same time using the end from the outside and the inside of the ball of yarn. As I was not sure how many rows I would get out of the remainder of the yarn, I worked a garter stitch cuff and placed random decreases under the arms. When I decided there were enough rows of garter stitch I switched to stocking stitch which gave me a nice rolled edge for the cast off.

No pictures of me wearing it yet, but you get the idea.