A Finished Item

 

With limiting my number of WIPs, I had to finish something eventually and I have finished the cardigan I started on the first of the year.

Although my aim is to use yarn in order of acquisition, the two projects I started in January both used yarn that I had previously tried to use but had been frogged part way through. One of the projects is the Tunisian crochet project which has been set aside for a while and the other is the one I completely finished this week. And by completely finished, I mean blocked, ends sewn in and buttons sewn on.

The yarn is Acadia from the Fiber Co.; a company that is no longer dyeing. There is still some yarn on their website at sale price but as I am using stash and not adding to it I refrained from purchasing any more of this particular yarn. The website calls it rustic but that is more in looks than feel as it felt soft to knit with and even more so after blocking. I purchased this yarn in the closing down sale of 2019, I tried one project in 2023 which didn’t work with gauge and then in September last year I tried a different pattern which also didn’t work out because I was trying to make changes that didn’t work. This year I tried again but without changes and it came out perfectly.

The only problem I thought I might have was buttons. My in person options were what was in my button jar and what Michael’s might have in stock. I did find five the right size and sewed them on as I wanted this a finished garment and not an almost finished garment. I have decided that instead of souvenir yarn I need to buy souvenir buttons.

The pattern is Yassen and is available for free. I didn’t have any problems with the pattern. The only discrepancy is the ribbing. The ribbing on the cuffs and bottom band is a 2x2 rib and the ribbing for the front band is 2x1 rib. I looked at the pattern pictures to check this and the designer’s original has 1x1 rib in all places. I was not bothered by this and continued the band as written, except I missed the last buttonhole which turned out to be a good thing because I didn’t have six buttons. Also I used a provisional cast on for the middle back (as seen in my how to post) instead of a standard cast on. For the front band I started the cast off in pattern but didn’t like how it looked so I worked an extra row and cast off knit wise from the wrong side.

It was 77 days from cast on to last button sewn on, I actually spent 52 days knitting and four days finishing.