edgewater and ice
This weekend, I’m pleased to have both a newly finished cardigan and a sunny day to photograph it! I just shopped for and sewed on the buttons today, and since I blocked it earlier in the weekend, I can now call the Thick and Thin Cardigan Coat from Fitted Knits an officially finished object and wear it out in all it’s glory. Even though it’s warmer than it has been, I’m still happy to have such a cozy cardigan, and I’m looking forward to the days when I can wear it out in lieu of a coat!
I promised sweater drama and here it is: I was a little frustrated that I didn’t finish off this sweater earlier in the week, but I lost a night of knitting time due to a major spill of powdered dye at work! It was only half my fault– I knocked it over but it was someone else who left it without the lid screwed on. The acid dye is a super-fine powder just perfect for getting on everything and staying airborne long enough to be generously inhaled and to cover everything with a fine coating of bright blue. The clean-up is still ongoing, but after that first mushroom cloud of acid dye, we all went home with mighty headaches (and neon colored boogers! ew) from all the inhalation. So it ended up taking an extra day longer than I anticipated to finish the cardigan!
My other dramatic sweater issue had to do with blocking, although you wouldn’t know it from how fantastic these pictures came out!
You might remember that I diligently knitted swatches and blocked them for this project. I was concerned that my gauge with the yarn substitution (Lorna’s Laces Revelation) was a little smaller than the pattern calls for, so I used my largest acceptable needle size and knitted one size larger than I thought I’d need from the schematic. It seemed like it was going to work perfectly, since I was able to try it on throughout the process. That is, it seemed perfect until I hand-washed the sweater the other night.
Even though I washed my swatches, they’re nowhere near as heavy as the finished sweater with its worsted weight trim, so I had no idea how much it would stretch under its waterlogged weight. Since I went for such big needles and there are no side seams, the fabric had no structural integrity to resist sagging with all that weight. It basically doubled in length! I wish I had thought to take a picture, but it slipped my nearly-panicking mind. I was afraid I had spent all that time and money making a floppy sweater for a giant! I tried to block it back into shape but the damage was done, and it was definitely not a Fitted Knit. I ended up putting the still-damp cardigan into the dryer for about 8 minutes (during which I checked it like 5 times) to shrink it back to a workable size. It did felt a little bit, particularly in the ribbing, but I do like the effect of it! It’s made the sweater even more cozy, and helped fill the gaps in the wide-open gauge.
All in all, I’m very happy with the cardigan and the colorway, and I’m glad to have learned the lesson about what swatches can and can’t tell you! Something tells me that there will be enough cold weather still to come this year that I’ll get lots of good, cozy use out of this project.
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OMG!! I would have freaked out!! After your soak!
How will you wash it going forward?? Dry clean only!!
Okay back to wonderful beautiful cardi!!!! It is so comfy cozy FAB!!!
Luv the colors and can’t wait to knit with my sock yarn in that color!! ;op
The edging is perfect for it! And I sure wish I could see those button! ;op
Hate you all had that dye accident (but look at it this way…at least your sweater was not near it in the open!!!! lol)
Hope you are enjoying your warmer weekend! :o)
It looks so good!! I was afraid for you for a minute there about the lengthening. Wonder if letting the swatch hang as it dries would help, I’m no expert at all but I do remember doing that a few times for 1 cardi I was knitting. Glad the dye incident wasn’t too bad, yikes though!
Even though it wasn’t a fitted knit – it still looks great! I love the colors, it’s just stunning, and it suits you well.
gorgeous!
I love it, the colors are fab!
It looks lovely. The colors of that variegated yarn are just great! Sorry to hear you had a little temporary trauma, but so glad to see it came out well in the end.
That looks better than the one in the book! I just love those colors.
I absolutely love it. The colors are fantastic and it looks so comfy!
I hardly ever swatch…. but then i also tend to stick with raglan type knits that you can try on. Still, you can never really predict how somethings going to turn out, no matter how hard you plan!
Still loving those colours, i bet the edgewater yarn is walking out the door at LL’s :)
[...] to the meaning of my name this weekend by industriously and diligently knitting up a storm. After finishing my cardigan, I turned to working on the delightfully fuzzy Prairie Boots from Cocoknits. This is a really fun [...]
I think the sweater looks fantastic and the felting around the ribbing worked out. I had a similar problem when I blocked a sweater made in cotton, only mine is still a little long because cotton is not forgiving.
I can’t believe you put it in the dryer! So brave of you! OMG! It looks fabulous! I just love the colors!
Wow…the sweater is beautiful!! I’m not a huge fan of bulky knits on me, but yours is tempting! :-)
[...] AND yarn you have already seen here? Because my (yes) spoiled kitty has let me know by cuddling my edgewater cardigan that she (yes) needs a second bed made out of the sweater leftovers. I’ve made Wendy [...]