Start to Finish: Channel Cardigan

The Channel Cardigan begins with casting on stitches for the entire body of the sweater; for my size that is over two hundred stitches to cast on. Rather than trying to estimate the amount of yarn needed to long-tail cast on that many stitches I used both ends of my wound yarn to cast on. 

However, if you've wound your yarn into balls, or can't find both ends, you can generally estimate one inch of yarn per cast on stitch for worsted weight yarn. To test how much tail you need, you can cast on a stitch, mark the beginning and end of the yarn you just used, pull out the cast on stitch to see the length of yarn you used and multiply that length by the number of stitches you need to cast on. I like using the two-end method because I don't need to estimate anything and that's worth having an extra tail of yarn to weave in at the end. 

Since I took this project on vacation with me I was able to get quite a bit done. Unfortunately, I was having such a nice time that I didn't realize that I neglected to  change the needle size after the ribbing and had to rip out about 8 inches of knitting. After throwing a little tantrum I ripped out the necessary length and got the sweater back on the correct needle size. 

There is a lot of texture knit into this cardigan and it's slow going at first but once the stitch patterns are established it's quite easy to keep track of where you are in the pattern.  

I'm just past the waist decreases and, as I mentioned in my previous post, I'm skipping the belt so I omitted the eyelets used to make the belt loops. The next section of the pattern includes waist increases and front shaping decreases for that large shawl collar. As soon as I reach the part of the pattern where the fronts and back are divided for the raglan sleeves I'm going to stop knitting and figure out the math for converting this to a set-in sleeve cardigan.

Start to Finish: Channel Cardigan

Last year I did a series called Start to Finish with my Pomme de Pin Cardigan that went through my decision making and knitting process and I've decided to repeat the process for my next sweater project.  I belong to a wonderful group on Ravelry, My Sister's Knitter, and the current KAL is Brooklyn Tweed patterns. Sounds like fun, right? After a whole lot of back and forth - should I join? should I not? - I decided to knit Channel Cardigan. 

The cardigan calls for Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, a worsted weight yarn that is woolen spun and therefore very light and lofty. I've knit with Shelter in the past and liked it but I didn't want to break the bank since my size calls for 14 skeins, so I went to Ravelry and looked at what other knitters used for their cardigans. Cascade 220 is a top yarn in that list so I decided then and there that I would use Cascade 220; a yarn with a ton of color options, great stitch definition, and is a reasonable price. The downside to using Cascade 220 is that the finished sweater will be heavier since it isn't woolen spun, but I'm okay with that. There are already several modifications that I want to make: removing the belt, making sure the shawl collar is big enough to snuggle into, and possibly adding another button hole. I'm also contemplating changing the raglan seamed sleeves to set in sleeves since raglan cardigans always slide off my shoulders. I knit my swatch at knit night on Monday.

Guess what? Perfect stitch and row gauge on the recommended needles. It's a knitting miracle! I used a US #7 (4.5 mm) needle and knit my swatch in moss stitch as listed in the pattern and it's approximately 5 inches by 6 inches. A good general rule is to knit a swatch big enough that when you measure over four inches you don't run into selvedge stitches; your stitch count will be more accurate since those selvedge stitches sometimes behave a little wonky. This project is now ready to cast on!

Start to Finish: Pomme de Pin

 My Pomme de Pin cardigan is finished!!! Yesterday morning I bound off the buttonband and yesterday afternoon I sewed on buttons. This cardigan turned out better than I imagined it would - the length is perfect, the sleeves hit just where I want them, and I'm absolutely positive I'll get a ton of wear out of it. 

Let's talk stats!

I started this project January 5th and bound off February 1st. Three weeks for a sport weight sweater isn't too shabby and I used stash yarn and library pattern stash to knit this up -that meets two of my goals for 2014. I was a little worried about having a couple of inches of positive ease built into the sweater but I don't feel like it necessarily translated into the finished garment. My yarn isn't superwash so it didn't do that melty opening-up thing that superwash yarns usually do, but it's totally fine with me. I did a slightly rough block on the sweater after setting in the sleeves and before picking up the button band - a more thorough block after the first wear will open up the lace a little more and smooth out the button band.

Pattern: Pomme de Pin by Amy Christoffers

Yarn: Valley Yarns Northampton Sport in Ocean Heather

Needles: US #6 (4 mm) & US #5 (3.75 mm) Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

Mods: I knit the sleeves two at a time until the sleeve caps and then knit them one at a time. The sleeves are shorter - only 17 inches instead of 19 - and I did 20 rounds of ribbing at the cuff. I used 1394 yards and the pattern called for 1400 yards. I think if I had decided to knit the sleeves as long as the pattern indicated I would have run out of yarn instead of having about half a skein left over. Phew! 

I hope you liked my Start to Finish series! I found it pretty rewarding to think more in-depth about my decision-making process regarding sweater knitting and how that translates to a finished garment that I'm happy with. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm planning on doing another one later in the year. Thank you for following along!

Start to Finish: Pomme de Pin

Are you all tired of my sweater posts? Let me tell you, I had an incredible urge to set it down while knitting the body and start knitting something else (in fact, I cast on another sweater) but after a day-long break I picked my cardigan back up and powered through. 

It helps that I was sick on Tuesday of last week and was able to spend almost the entire day recovering on the sofa while knitting and watching Dawson's Creek (guilty pleasure!). I finished the bulk of the knitting, sewed in the sleeves, and blocked the body of the sweater before picking up the button band. 

Now all I have is 300+ stitches to knit back and forth before I'm ready to sew on buttons!

Start to Finish: Pomme de Pin

I didn't post any progress on this sweater last week since I was knitting my way through the body. I made a couple of decisions about this sweater after reading through the pattern and referring to the schematic that I'd like to share.

If you've knit lace you'll know that something magical happens when it hits the water - it grows! Those crumpled stitches relax and the finished piece grows and opens up during the blocking process. This sweater is knit in an allover lace pattern so it makes sense that it will grow during the blocking process - both vertically and horizontally. The instructions for the body say to knit until it measures 17 inches but the schematic for the sweater also says 17 inches. If the lace pattern is going to grow lengthwise then I know that I need to knit less than 17 inches for the blocked measurement to match the schematic. 

This is where your swatch comes in handy! Your unblocked swatch measurement and your blocked swatch measurement will give you the magical number of rows or inches you'll need to knit the sweater to the correct length to match the schematic. My swatch is still MIA but I know that my swatch grew about an inch after blocking. Based on that information I decided to knit my sweater body to 15 inches and I'll rely on the blocking process to eke out that extra two inches. I'll use this information for knitting the sleeves since I don't want them to be too long. I've made a lot of progress since last week - I split for the fronts and back, knit the rest of one front, and am most of the way through the back. If all goes well I may have a finished cardigan by the end of January!

Start to Finish: Pomme de Pin

 I'm making some progress on my Pomme de Pin cardigan. The ribbing took two days of commuting by bus to complete.

Here I am today, about half-way through a repeat of the pinecone lace pattern. Everything is very straightforward, as in 17" straight up knitting in pattern. There's no waist shaping to deal with but if I were to add some this is how I would do it: keep more stitches in stockinette on either side of the stitch markers for the sides and decrease or increase to your heart's content. In order to do this you need to know the distance from the hem of your garment to your waist and then distribute the decreases evenly along that length after the ribbing. The same thing goes for increases - measure the distance from your waist to your underarms and distribute the increases along that length. Since this is meant to be a cozy, untailored type of sweater I'm knitting it as written.

Start to Finish: Pomme de Pin

I'm hosting a cardigan KAL in one of my very favorite groups on Ravelry - My Sister's Knitter - and thought I'd share my process when knitting sweaters for myself. It seems straightforward enough, right? Choose a pattern, choose some  yarn, knit a swatch, knit a sweater. Done.

A lot of things go into my decision-making process, including the yarn and pattern, but also my body shape and my existing wardrobe. So let's talk about body shape first - Amy Herzog has an amazing class on Craftsy that gives a great overview of different body shapes and some guidelines for what sweaters might work for each shape. In the end, though, you should wear sweaters that make you feel great about your body and that you'll love regardless of whether they fit into specific guidelines for your shape.

For example, I have a proportionate figure where my bust and hips are both 43" and my waist is 36". I also know that my bust and my rear stick out about the same distance from my body so I don't need to do short rows to make adjustments for a large bust and a small rear or vice versa (short rows help sweaters not ride up in the back or front if you have a bust/rear inequality, or a large tummy). When I choose sweaters I tend toward patterns with set-in sleeves, or the illusion of a set-in sleeve, so that the sleeve cap seam creates a visual reference point for the outer limits of my body. Cardigans are also at the top of my list for wearability since the vertical line down the center of the body visually breaks up the width of my bust and hips.

How do I choose a pattern?

If you're on Ravelry, use the advanced pattern search and filter your search by the attributes you want in your sweater. For example, I would search for cardigan and set-in sleeve and maybe a fabric characteristic that I feel like knitting such as cables or lace or a construction method such as top-down or bottom-up. If you have a yarn in your stash you'd like to use you can also choose that weight of yarn.

If you're not on Ravelry I suggest visiting an LYS and looking through patterns and books as well as getting suggestions from staff.  

 Photo via Savory Knitting

I chose Pomme de Pin since I absolutely love Amy Christoffers' patterns and already had the pattern in my library (it meshes with one of my resolutions for this year). This pattern also has a lot of projects listed in Ravelry so I can browse how it looks on different body types and with different amounts of ease. Generally, I knit a 42" bust since I like a little negative ease. Pomme de Pin is meant to be worn with 3-ish inches of positive ease which puts me smack dab in the middle of the third size. I'm okay with that amount of ease since the other option is to knit about 4" of negative ease. This cardigan is meant to be a cozy, lightweight piece so 3" of positive ease sounds just about right to me.

What about the yarn?

I'm using yarn from my stash (another resolution) that I purchased from Webs at Stitches West last year specifically for Pomme de Pin; Valley Yarns Northampton Sport in Ocean Heather. Again, you can look at what other knitters used for their sweater on Ravelry, dig through your stash, or visit an LYS for suggestions and help. One thing I do look at when substituting yarn is the content of the yarn. If a pattern calls for a silk blend yarn you're going to want a yarn that has similar drape if you want your finished sweater to look the same. Pomme de Pin calls for Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport which is a superwash wool yarn - my yarn isn't superwash so my swatch will tell me if it's going to behave correctly. That leads me to the swatch.

Do one. Really. It's going to tell you a lot about whether or not the pattern and yarn will play nicely together. I've knit a large-ish swatch - about 7 inches square - and washed it just as I would my finished garment and then let it dry before measuring it. My swatch (mysteriously disappeared now that I want it to show y'all a picture) was spot on for gauge so I'm going to go ahead and cast on!