Moss-stitch trim zip-up cardigan.

The Dreaded Lurgy keeps striking me down in sudden and annoying ways, so I have mostly spent the weekend quietly knitting.

The first part of the weekend was spent unravelling, when I realised that I couldn't bear to knit another stitch on the Cardigan with Cabled Points, and I was no longer certain that I actually wanted to wear it even if I did force myself to get it finished. So, I made the executive decision to unravel the whole thing.

I still wanted to knit a zip-fronted cardigan, but I decided to go for something a lot simpler. No pointy bits, no cabling on rows that didn't line up, just a simple fitted cardigan.

Having turned to Ann Budd for help, I managed to get this far:

I've typed the pattern out below, for a size 36" chest. Once the cardigan's finished, I'll write out the pattern in more sizes and make it available, probably as a PDF file. It should work with any chunky weight wool.

I haven't checked the pattern for any glaring errors yet, mostly because I haven't finished knitting it! I'll make edits as I go along, if I find anything that's difficult to follow.

If you decide to follow the pattern and find anything odd about it, please let me know!


Moss Stitch Trim Zip-Up Cardigan

Wool used - RowanSpun Chunky, approximately 525 metres.
Any chunky weight yarn should work out fine, as long as the gauge is correct.
7.5mm straight needles.
12 stitches and 18 rows to 4 inches.

The pattern below is for a finished chest measurement of 36".

Back
Cast on 54 sts
Moss stitch for 10 rows
St st until piece measures 6"
Dec 1 st at each end of next and foll alt row*
Work 5 rows even
Inc 1 st at each end of next and foll alt row
Work even until piece measures 13"
Armhole Shaping
Cast off 3 sts at beg of next 2 rows
Cast off 2 sts at beg of next 2 rows
Dec 1 st at each end of next and foll alt row
Work even on 40 sts until armhole measures 8½"
Shoulder Shaping
Cast off 5 sts at beg of next 4 rows
Cast off rem 20 sts for back neck

Left Front
Cast on 27 sts
Moss stitch for 10 rows
Change to st st, keeping 6 sts in moss stitch at end of all rows. (This creates self band.)
St st until piece measures 6"
Dec 1 st at beg of next and foll alt row*
Work 5 rows even
Inc 1 st at beg of next and foll alt row
Work even until piece measures 13", ending on ws row.
Armhole Shaping
Cast off 3 sts at beg of next row
Cast off 2 sts at beg of foll rs row
Dec 1 st at beg of each rs row, 2 times
Work even on 20 sts until armhole measures 7", ending with ws row
Neck Shaping
Slip 6 edge sts onto stitch holder
Join new yarn, and work to end of row
At beg of next ws row, cast off 5 sts
Cast off 1 st at beg of next rs row (neck edge), 2 times
Then dec 1 st at neck edge every rs row, 3 times
Cont even on 4 sts until piece measures same as back, ending with ws row.
Shoulder Shaping
Cast off 4 sts.

Right Front
Cast on 27 sts
Moss stitch for 10 rows
Change to st st, keeping 6 sts in moss stitch at beginning of all rows. (This creates self band.)
St st until piece measures 6"
Dec 1 st at end of next and foll alt row*
Work 5 rows even
Inc 1 st at end of next and foll alt row
Work even until piece measures 13", ending on rs row.
Armhole Shaping
Cast off 3 sts at beg of next row
Cast off 2 sts at beg of foll ws row
Dec 1 st at beg of each ws row, 2 times
Work even on 20 sts until armhole measures 7", ending on rs row
Neck Shaping
Work to last 6 sts.
Slip 6 edge sts on to stitch holder.
At beg of next rs row, cast off 5 sts
Cast off 1 st at beg of next ws row (neck edge), 2 times
Then dec 1 st at neck edge every ws row, 3 times
Cont even on 4 sts until piece measures same as back, ending with ws row.
Shoulder Shaping
Cast off 4 sts.

Neck Band
Sew fronts to back at shoulder seams
Mark centre back
Work on 6 sts of each front band in moss stitch until they are long enough to meet at centre back
Cast off and sew bands together at centre back, or graft bands together
Sew bands to fronts and back neck.

Sleeves
Cast on 28 sts
Moss stitch for 10 rows
Change to st st
Inc 1 st at each end of every 6 rows, 9 times
Work even on 46 sts until piece measures 16" (or desired length to armhole)
Shape Cap
Cast off 3 sts at beg of next 2 rows
Cast off 2 sts at beg of next 2 rows
Dec 1 st at each end of every rs row, 2 times (32 sts)
Dec 1 st at each end every 4 rows
Dec 1 st at each end of every rs row, 6 times
Cast off 4 sts at beg of next 2 rows
Cast off rem 10 sts

Finishing
Block all pieces, if necessary
Sew fronts to back at side seams
Sew sleeve seams
Set sleeves into armholes
Insert zip at centre front.

Notes
*If you do not require waist shaping, simply leave these rows out, and work even until piece measures 13".

As you knit the fronts, you may find that the moss stitch pulls the work upwards. you can gently stretch the bands out as you go, or you can leave it, and even things out when you block.

When you knit the bands, you may find that you need to knit them longer than you think, in order to stretch them around the curves of the crew neck.

Two Sleeves in Two Days

Now that my Dad has opened his Christmas present (my parents are going away this year), I can safely reveal that it has taken three weeks to knit a single glove for him. It was ribbed, it was fiddly, and it was in DK, which is the thinnest yarn I have ever used.

Now that I don't need to have the second glove finished until he comes back from his travels (oops...), I decided to give my fingers a bit of a break, and go back to the Nicky Epstein Cardigan with Cabled Points. I knew that knitting with chunky wool on 7½mm needles would be much faster than ribbing in DK, but I wasn't expecting to complete both of the sleeves in just two days!

I'd completely lost track of where I was up to on the first sleeve, so I decided to bite the bullet, unravel what I'd done, and start again. I'm really not having very much luck with this pattern.

This time the mistake genuinely wasn't mine, but a printing error. The row numbers for the sleeve had been printed wrongly, and before I knew it I had three fewer stitches than I needed. I made an executive decision not to undo the sleeve again, but instead to make some cunningly disguised increases on the next row. Thankfully, this worked really well.

I also made an executive decision to change the increases on the sleeves. As you may have noticed on my previous encounter with this cardigan, my maths really isn't up to much, and I couldn't cope with cabling on every sixth row and increasing on every eighth. My decision was to make the increases on the same rows as the cables, which made for less counting, which is fine by me!

As it happened, by the time I'd finished the correct number of increases the sleeve was already at the exact length I was supposed to keep knitting to, so if I'd been increasing every eight rows instead of every six, it would actually have been several inches too long!

If you click through to the larger picture of the single sleeve, you can get a much better indication of how this will look once it's finished. You can really see the bright flecks of blue, and the occasional spot of red, scattered across the sleeve.

A scarf and a squirrel handbag.

Remember that frighteningly tangled skein of silk?

This is what became of it:

It's a narrow scarf, which is long enough to reach below the waist on both sides. It's knitted with one strand of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk and two strands of Colinette Parisienne held together. I cast on 13 stitches, on 5mm needles. Every fourth row, I changed to a 10mm needle. Otherwise it's just plain garter stitch - keep knitting until the yarn runs out!



Here's the last of the pre-ordered tote bags, which I finished today.



You may have noticed that it's a different shape from the others!

The photographs don't show the shape particularly well - it's more curvy than it looks. It's big, too - in the second picture the bag has an A4 pad inside it, to keep it nice and flat. It has one long handle, and you can just see a tiny sneaky peek of the Design By Claire label in there too.



Tomorrow night is Hallowe'en and I've just rustled up a very quick costume thanks to Martha Stewart. I'll tell you all about it as soon as I have some photos. Happy Hallowe'en!

Some days, you just shouldn't knit.

I was off work yesterday, with tonsilitis, so I thought I'd have a nice relaxing afternoon on the sofa, gently coughing into a bit of nice simple knitting.

I had a skein of Colinette Parisienne mohair and a skein of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, which I thought would pair up nicely together to make a fabulously soft scarf.

I wound them into balls with my trusty ball winder, and made a start.



I had wondered whether the mohair might be a bit of a pain, as I'm using two strands held together with one strand of the silk, and I was a bit worried that I might get into a tangle using the yarn from both the inside and the outside of the ball at once.

Three rows later, and I discover that the problem is not going to be with the mohair, but with the silk.



My carefully wound ball has started to fall apart at both ends!

An hour of careful untangling later, and I am faced with this:



That could have gone better. :(


The LiveJournal brit_knits community have been extremely helpful, and in the end I was able to untangle the whole thing, without taking the scissors to it! It only took five and three-quarter hours... I could have knitted the whole scarf in that time!

Speaking of which... I'm about twenty rows in, and I've now decided that the scarf is too wide. I'm really not sure yet whether I can face unravelling the knitting as well as the yarn, so I might just have to learn to live with a short, wide scarf!


Lesson Of The Day: Don't wind silk into centre-pull balls!

It seems I owe Nicky Epstein an apology.

In the greatest tradition of these things, it's not her, it's me.

I did say that I was mathematically challenged, when I was complaining about this cardigan pattern being all wrong. As it turns out, I am also challenged in the department of being able to read a knitting pattern. Oops.

What I was trying to do was:
k12 sl1 k1 psso k1 k2tog, k12 sl1 k1 psso k1 k2tog, k12 sl1 k1 psso k1 k2tog...

and what I should I have been doing was this:

k12 sl1 k1 psso k1 k2tog k12, k12 sl1 k1 psso k1 k2tog k12, k12 sl1 k1 psso k1 k2tog k12...

Spot the extra "k12" in the second line, which makes all the difference.


Anyway, I have now finished the back, and aside from my own stupidity, it was extremely easy to knit.

The waist shaping at the back is achieved entirely by the cables pulling the knitting in - there's no shaping in the back at all, apart from the armholes.

The last photo is probably the most accurate in terms of the colour. The wool is Rowanspun Chunky, which I bought in the sale at Cucumberpatch

The only change I've made so far is that I'm knitting it on 7.5mm needles instead of 8mm. The smallest size given in the pattern was 38" and I wanted mine to be a little tighter than that, so hopefully the slightly smaller gauge will make just enough difference.

(You watch the damn thing turn out too small now!)

New Toys, or I Love My Yarn Winder.

I have a new yarn winder! It arrived a couple of days ago from Texere. It was quite expensive for a little plastic gadget, but it's definitely going to be worth the money.



The first thing I did when it arrived was to immediately set to work winding balls from the odd skeins of Colinette from my stash. In fact I loved my yarn winder so much that I actually re-wound a couple of balls that I'd previously done by hand, as the little flat "cakes" of yarn that the winder produces are so much nicer! You pull the yarn out from the centre to knit with, so they keep their shape as you work and, they don't roll away across the floor! They also stack really nicely.

I'm working out a pattern for a jumper which I plan to knit using Colinette Cadenza. I really didn't fancy winding five hundred grams of wool into balls by hand, so I'm really pleased that the yarn winder works so well.