Koigu Feather and Fan top

This is another jumper which I've knitted as part of my Home Fires project - the fourth garment so far this year, so I'm very pleased with that amount of progress!

There were several of these tops worn during the course of the two series (see my original post here), and although I'd intended using Koigu wool for this I ended up using slightly different colours than originally planned.

I knitted one less widthways pattern repeat and used smaller needles than were given in the pattern (3.25mm instead of 3.75mm) in order to get close to the pattern tension.  I didn't change the sleeves though - by the time it came to knit them I just wanted them done.  As it was I had to reknit the cuffs because I didn't have enough wool to do 12 rows of ribbing on each sleeve.  I knew I was going to be close to running out of wool, so did both at the same time and in the end each has 10 rows, which I think is enough for short sleeves.

The armhole shaping given in this pattern is one I haven't come across before - on the body pieces there is just a large number of stitches cast off on each side all in one go and then it's knitted straight.  When attaching the sleeves you don't sew the side seam up to as far as the first cap shaping cast offs, but leave part of the sleeve seam unseamed and then use that as part of the sleeve cap.  At least that's what I did.  That might not have been correct, the pattern just said "sew the sleeve seam for 5 inches", so maybe I had the wrong row tension (no row tension is given in the pattern), but I don't think my tension would have been out by that much on such a short piece of knitting, and if I hadn't attached the sleeves that way the armhole would have been too big for the sleeve cap.

One unforseen consequence of taking out one pattern repeat was that the centre front neckline looked a bit strange because the pattern went up instead of down.

Original front neckline with 18 stitches cast off in the centre

I'd already lowered the neckline and didn't like how it turned out so unpicked it and reknitted it to be wider at the base as well (28 stitches cast off in the centre) and I think it looks OK now.  I also dipped the back neckline slightly and did short row shoulders.

Even though I carried the different coloured wool up the side of the knitting when possible, there were still rather a lot of ends to weave in, which took hours.  Not enough to put me off knitting another one of these though, although I think the next one I'll do the pattern row in knit rather than purl, just to be a bit different from this one.  And change the patterning so that it dips in the centre front and back.

Definitely a good pattern for using up leftovers.

Rust cotton DK cardigan

This is another stashbusting project - I bought this yarn back in 2011 - and have had various thoughts on what to knit with it over the years but never settled on anything.  Finally... I've knitted it.  This is just a plain, stocking stitch v-necked cardigan - the body is knitted in pieces and seamed, although with hindsight I cound just as easily have knitted it all-in-one, the sleeves are picked up and knitted top-down in the round, the button band was picked up and the buttons are vintage from The Swagman's Daughter.

I don't know whether Drops have improved the knot count of this yarn (Muskat DK 100% cotton) in the intervening years, but some of the balls I knitted with had 3 or 4 knots in them which was a pain.  I've got this yarn in one more colourway and I'll probably knit another of these cardigans with it, but I don't think I'll buy any more.

I did think I might get a dress made to go with this for the #OAL2019 challenge, but as it turned out life intervened and I didn't have time.  It does go with this dress really well though, so, result!

I can't say I enjoyed knitting this, but I am pleased with the finished item and have already worn it a couple of times.