« a surprise present! for me! | Home | Literary Rabbit Book Club »

Featherweight Cardigan

By Stef | January 20, 2010

After all of the whining about how I can’t seem to knit anything correctly, you may be surprised to learn that I’m in the process of knitting another project, Hannah Fettig’s Featherweight Cardigan.  I blame Lee and her Featherweight Cardigan.

I tried very hard not to spend any money on this new knitting venture. The good news is that this sweater is knit using fine yarn and, as a weaver, I happen to have many cones of fine yarn in my stash.  I chose a cone of Jaggerspun’s Lambswool and Baby Alpaca - I think I purchased this for some obscenely low price ($6.00?).  It is soooo soft.

The deal I made with myself is that I will use this cardigan as a learning experience and try very hard not to judge myself when I make mistakes.  Now that I’m actually knitting this project, it’s harder than it sounds.

Here’s a photo of the project and the yarn:

featherweight-cardigan-02

Note the gray office walls in the background - we really do need to hang the finished crop circle embroidery at some point - the pieces are framed and ready to go…just need to bribe K to come to my office & lend a hand.

Here’s a picture of the sweater body & the sleeve.  I’m almost finished knitting the first sleeve.  The sweater is too big (as usual, I chose a size that’s too big for me) <–oops!  sounded like judgment there.

featherweight-cardigan-progress

The circumference of the sleeve is definitely too large.  I’ve decided to continue to knit - I’ll finish the sleeve at a 3/4 length with a 3″ ribbing in the hope that it might be cuffed.  If not, I’ll just deal with the clown sleeves on this practice piece. Oops!

Correction:  The large, non-tapering sleeves are an essential design feature of this sweater.

This positive thinking is difficult, isn’t it?

The sleeves are going very quickly.  I’m hoping to have them finished by the end of the weekend.   Then I’ll pick up the edges and knit the border.  I may have to enlist some help because I have no clue how to evenly pick up 2 of 3 stitches along the edge.

I was going to finish this post with some other news involving looms and enamel jewelry but I’ve run out of time to post.  So that’s it for now.

Topics: Fiber, Knitting |

2 Responses to “Featherweight Cardigan”

  1. Lee Says:
    January 20th, 2010 at 9:58 am

    A couple of things: you can rip the sleeve back a ways and taper it. If you are uncomfortable with ripping, bring it to me, I have lots of experience. And if you want the sleeve to be cuffed, go down a couple of needle sizes for the ribbing. It won’t draw in much, otherwise.

    If the body is too big, you can rip that to the armhole and decrease as well. The time to do it is before you get the collar on (ask me how I know). The beauty of a top down sweater is that you can fix fit issues as you go.

    Something I have been seeing on sewing blogs, and is applicable to knitting: when you are not so experienced, you tend to screw up a lot because you are new and that is part of learning. When you are more experienced, you tend to screw up a lot because you are challenging yourself and that is part of learning.

  2. Barbara Lewis Says:
    February 2nd, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    Hi Stef, I’m sorry you tried to access the ning and couldn’t gain access … I have changed the setting to “public.” Please come back! Barbara

Comments