Friday, August 3, 2012

Sophie Cardi


This is what I've been knitting for the past couple of months.  It went a little slowly because I was making up the pattern as I went along, but I finally finished.  The yarns are from a SAL that I did with my friend Bohoknitterchic's Ravelry group.  I had a 3 oz batt that I spun into 516 yds of single ply yarn in the fingering/lace weight-ish range.  I had 2 oz of locks that I corespun into 80 yds of worsted/aran weight and 11 yds of tailspun.  I had a 3 oz braid of BFL dyed in a coordinating color, which I spun into 213 yds of two ply.  I wanted to get a full cardigan out of it, so I decided to knit top down so I could go as far as possible with my yarn.  I cast on with the corespun and did evenly spaced increases to create a round yoke out to the shoulders.  After I ran out of corespun, I did two rows with the tailspun locks and then began with the single ply batt yarn.  I did a few short rows to round the shoulders.  (Next time I'll do more of these, since there are still folds at the armscye.)

I knit short sleeves plus a band of garter stitch in the BFL yarn for the cuffs.  Then I continued down, doing some decreases to high waist and increases after that for some shape.  I ended with another band of garter edging for the hem.  The buttons are handmade from deer antlers, something I pick up at Stash!
I'm very happy with how it came out, it fits just right and shows off the hand spun, and I got a whole cardi out of 8 oz of fiber with quite a bit leftover, maybe I'll make some fingerless gloves to match.