My Christmas Cardigan

I might not have anything to show for this year but I still have a few finished items from last year that have yet to make an appearance. I haven’t posted about them as they are garments that I wanted to photograph with me wearing them.

For Christmas 2022 I made myself a skirt. It is definitely a Christmas skirt and is very likely the only time I will wear it. I used the same pattern as here but did a better job with the waistband, this time it all made sense. Also I cut out the size larger to make the pleats bigger but I’m not sure that was necessarily a good idea. Having made a skirt for 2022, I decided to make a garment for 2023; especially as I had red yarn in my stash. It just would have been better if I had started it earlier in the year. I started the project on 1 August. Plenty of time to finish for Christmas if I hadn’t had so many other projects on the go which I wanted to finish. I finished the cardigan in time for Christmas although I did not have any buttons I could still wear it. I do have photos of the cardigan and skirt taken at Christmas but they are not very good and the cardigan does not have buttons so does not count as finished.

And buying buttons was not too hard even though I needed nine and I had to go to JoAnns. I managed to get five sets of two each. 

Now that it is completely finished I’m not sure how much I like it. I am not sure if it is because I have been wearing it with jeans and it doesn’t go with jeans, or if I have been wearing it buttoned up and it doesn’t look as nice buttoned up. I will have to try it with a skirt and see what I think buttoned and unbuttoned.

Let’s talk about the pattern – Fickle Heart by Justyna Lorkowska, a Polish designer. The pattern is written for worsted weight yarn and I just so happened to have some in my stash. My gauge was slightly different from the pattern so I made a size larger to make up for this. The pattern is knit from the top down with stitches picked up for the hood. I didn’t want to make the hood, I felt it was a design feature that would cover up the wonderful cables on the back of the cardigan. The cardigan is knit in the round from the top down. Top down is not my favourite form of construction and this cardigan emphasizes why. The shoulders are too narrow and the armholes are too deep. Although they are the correct size based on my measurements in the pattern. If I had been knitting from the bottom up, these parts of the garment would have been easy to correct. Because the shoulders are a little too narrow, the sleeve head puffs up. My friend and I have been discussing different ways to rectify this which will have to wait until the weather is less wet! The sleeves are worked by picking up stitches around the armhole and then working short rows. I was lucky and able to check out from the library Elizabeth Doherty’s book on set-in sleeve design which explained very well how to pick up the stitches and work the short rows. The other feature that fits perfectly well but I do not like on me is the waist shaping and is probably why I do not like wearing the garment with jeans.

I said the yarn was in my stash and has been waiting for a very long time. It is Patons Decor that I purchased some time before 2005 and I was going to make a baby blanket as a gift but changed my mind and never used the yarn for anything else. The yarn has moved with us twice and now was its time. Because I wanted a red garment and this was extra appropriate as the colour name is Christmas Red.

This is the back of the cardigan before the neck band was added but shows the pattern well and you can see why I wouldn't want to cover it up.

 

And this picture shows me wearing the finished item but standing at an angle so you can't see the pronounced waist shaping.