Wow, has this one been on the needles for a while! The Lush Cardigan by tincanknits.

While I love the finished item, this thing was an absolute bitch to knit, quite frankly. And it wasn’t even that the pattern was hard. I think that really, it just didn’t want to be knit. But, as you can see, I beat it into submission. 😉

I have knit the body of this cardigan three times. Count it with me – 1, 2, 3 times. 😦 It went kinda something like this:

1. Knit the lace yoke, all good. Pick up the neck and collar stitches and complete including short rows, just fine. Pick up and knit the body, separate the armholes, knit down to the bottom ribbing including waist shaping, start bottom ribbing, realise you’ve used the smaller ribbing needle size for the whole body. F**KING WHAT?!! ARGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!! You know what comes next: RIIIIIIIP!
2. After ripping out the WHOLE BODY up to the underarm, the stitches were picked up again along the lace yoke with the RIGHT NEEDLE (I was sure to get it right this time!), knit, knit, knit, complete waist shaping, getting close to the bottom ribbing, realised one of the edge stitches had fallen off the needle about 8″ down. YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME?!! Searched about online to find a tutorial to help with picking up edge stitches. Attempted to unravel a few side stitches and pick up with a crochet hook but the edge ended up VERY tight. As I still needed to pick up button bands I knew the tight, curving edge would not do, so 8″ of knitting got ripped out. 😥
3. This time I got it right 😀

The only thing I did realise is that the top of the sleeve is still knit in the smaller needle due to the construction of the cardigan and the fact I only ripped up to the underarm. After what this cardigan had already put me through,  I let it slide.

I knit this one out of Cascade 220 Superwash in the Jet colourway which is a heathered black. The pattern was very easy to follow and mostly well explained. I did have one criticism of the way the lace yoke is written however. Instead of saying knit x number of repeats of the chart the instructions say to knit (for my size) 152 rows! You know how hard it is to keep track of 152 rows? I spent ages trying to calculate the number of chart repeats 152 rows was. Didn’t help that I kept forgetting that the even numbered rows weren’t charted… >.<

I chose to do wrist length sleeves (vs 3/4 sleeves as per pattern) on my cardigan as I had the extra yarn (still have some left!) and I prefer longer sleeves. I made them just hit my wrist bone so I can comfortably put on some fingerless mitts with my cardigan. 🙂 My project page can be found on Ravelry here.

So in the end, I got a great cardigan that I love despite all the near-tears.  My sister tried to get me to give it to her last night when I took it to show it off. So I guess that’s a good sign too. It’s now been added to her list of things she wants me to knit for her! 😉 Just have to get the one I have going for her already finished first…

What have you been knitting lately? 🙂