I got the yarn for this latest project from the New York Sheep and Wool Fair, or Rhinebeck for short.<\/p>\n
I could have sworn I took a photo of my Rhinebeck haul but a cursory search in a single location didn’t yield fruit and the picture wasn’t all that great anyway. I took yarn weight and quantity details with me, as I wanted to get something lovely to make a Lavandula<\/a> with, and this seemed like the right place to get it. I wanted to get something in a dark grey.<\/p>\n When I saw the skeins of dark grey alpaca hanging in the booth, I thought “that looks like the color I’m after” (I was in the US, so clearly was thinking in US spelling). I reached out and felt it and -ooOOooh!<\/p>\n I was in love.<\/p>\n This is possibly the smooshiest yarn I have ever felt, smooshier even than previous alpaca yarns I have loved. For the next few weeks, my favourite trick was to hand a skein to someone who was in full conversational flow, and -ooOOooh. Yes, it’s conversation stoppingly smooshy. I quite quickly moved on, though, from petting it to winding it. I wound each of the 3 skeins I got into 2 balls so that I could knit a row in each of the skeins, thus preventing any colour-pooling or having the arms in a different colour. For, as the lady at the booth said, although the yarn is undyed and all from the same fleece, the underbelly might have been a different shade to its back. The balls of wound yarn were also very smooshy.<\/p>\n The first part of this pattern requires one to knit 12 inches of very long rows of 1×1 rib. This is not my favourite kind of knitting, being 1 step up from the dreaded moss stitch, but needs must. After quite the ribbing extravaganza, you get to knit a lacy pattern so I hung on in there.<\/p>\n Through series 2 of The Bridge and I think some Game Of Thrones I ploughed on, having memorised the lace pattern (to the extent that the second sleeve has slightly more lace at the row-ends than the first – I got more confident by then) and much concentrating and checking off through simultaneous raglan and neckline decreases. And The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I had to do the button band twice because I didn’t pick up enough stitches and it pulled in too much.<\/p>\n A quick beef about this. Why say “pick up 90 stitches”? Why not say “Pick up 3 stitches for every 4 rows”, especially when the body of the garment is measured in inches rather than rows. Eh? A lot of misery could be avoided that way.<\/p>\n …and so it was nearly done. I sewed the buttons on straight away (I had planned ahead and bought some before starting to knit. Get me, with my thinking ahead) and thus found out straight away that I had one button hole too many. I think, however, that I do indeed have one button hole too many and not one button too few as doing up the top button, were there a button there, would look really quite odd.<\/p>\n And so here it is – my new favourite cardigan.<\/p>\n I had a moment of crisis about half way through making this that the combination of raglan sleeves and rib over the belly would only serve to accentuate my negative features ~ however, in spite of the amount of sucking in that’s going on in the photo above (note the blue shade around my lips) I think it’s actually pretty flattering. And the snowflake pattern works well. As does the colour. And it’s still very smooshy. If a bit hairy.<\/p>\n I just hope the large amount of negative and dark telly I watched while making it hasn’t affected its aura. I’d hate to start growing tattoos as a result…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to Ravelry my new favourite cardigan has taken me 3.5 months to knit. I’m really pleased with this – there was a time not so long ago when I would plan *months* ahead and not be able to bank … Continue reading ![\"rhinebeck-trees\"](\"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/rhinebeck-trees-225x300.jpg\" "\\"rhinebeck-trees\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"ribby-alpaca\"](\"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ribby-alpaca-300x225.jpg\" "\\"ribby-alpaca\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"nearly-done\"](\"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/2014-02-08-20.02.27-225x300.jpg\" "\\"nearly-done\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"finished-cardigan\"](\"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/2014-02-15-11.13.59.jpg\" "\\"finished-cardigan\\"")
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