Monday, July 14, 2008

FO: Tulip Cardigan

Pattern: Tulip, from Rowan 41
Yarn: Rowan Damask, in Serpentine
Comments: This cardigan has taken a year to finish - it sat in hibernation for most of the winter, since I didn't see much point in finishing it until the weather was warm enough to wear it. The pattern is decent - just the back and 2 fronts, since the sleeves are part of the body piece. The instructions for the neckband were a bit odd though - basically, you knit the frill as a seperate piece, and then pick-up 276 (for my size) stitches up one front, along the neck and down the other side - for each stitch that you pick-up, you knit that into one of the stitches on the frill, thereby joining them together. I tried it, but it was too frustrating to go on with. In the end, I just picked up stitches as indicated, and then grafted them together. SO much easier.

As for the overall cardigan, this is one of those projects that I wish I'd had Ravelry for (I didn't join until after I'd knit the back and part of a front). The body on this is very short - It comes to just below my natural waist, and I'm a short person. Here's a photo of me in it, pre-sewing in ends and blocking...
Its not super short, but not as long as I would ideally like it. The blocking helped a little, simply by flattening the ruffle on the bottom, but not that much. (No Hannah, I did not expect it to grow from blocking! :P ) Anyway, it is designed to be worn over something, so its not that big a deal. I just think that I would try to make it longer in the body if I were to do it again. Also, the sleeves are a little narrow (again, they got a little more loose after blocking) - but if you had big arms, I think it could end up too tight for a lot of people. Not sure how you'd make them wider, given the style of the sleeves.

One problem I did have with this project was the yarn. Damask is 57% viscose, 22% linen, and 21% acrylic, and it does start to look it after a while... Too much friction (or ripping out, when trying to make sense of the frill-attaching instructions) on this yarn makes it fuzz - I'm a little sceptical about how its going to boy wear. Also (and more importantly!) can you see the colour difference in the back of this cardigan:
the bottom third of the sweater looks like it was knit with a different dye lot, even though I know this was all marked as the same lot number! (and I bought the yarn at Ring-a-Rosie, and the ladies there are fabulous about making sure you remember to check lot numbers!). I'm just glad this happened on the back, so its not as noticeable. The ties wrap around there anyway, so hopefully it will just look like a trick of the light or something.

The photo doesn't quite do the colour issue justice, but I think I will send it to Rowan anyway, to see what they say about it. I bought the yarn last year, so its not like I would expect much in return, I just think they should know about it!

Ravelled here

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think it looks rather fetching... I am almost finished knitting one of these myself..... in the pyrite colourway :)

The Knit Nurse said...

Yey! Well done. It looks really good.