FO: Hortencia Cardigan

One nice perk of having all this Covid-19 craziness has been all the very generous free offers by various designers and artists out there. One of them was that Andi Satterlund (I've knit many of her patterns over the years) generously offered one pattern of your choice for free. I love her vintage aesthetic of her patterns, which is why I've knit so many. This freebie happened at the perfect time because I had suddenly developed a love for the Hortencia pattern, which I really didn't care much for when it was released. Funny how our tastes change, isn't it? I had contemplated grabbing this pattern a few times, but I just have so many patterns that I couldn't justify buying another that I wasn't necessarily going to knit up any time soon, you know? So when Andi put up the freebie code, I knew exactly what I wanted to get with it :) And I was ready for a simple knitting project AND I had yarn on hand to make it with. So this project was just meant to be. I officially started knitting this on March 27th, and even with not devoting a ton of time to knitting I managed to finish it by April 15th.

I checked through my whole stash on Ravelry (holy cow, I love the stash feature - seriously you should look into it), and I came across 5 skeins of Cascade Avalon in the Pirate Black colorway. Avalon is a 50/50 cotton and acrylic blend, so it makes for a sweater that is warm enough for air conditioning but not heavy like wool and too warm for Florida. I bought this yarn for crazy cheap in a Craftsy sale back in 2016 thinking that "black" meant black. My monitor showed it as closer to black black, maybe slightly lighter, and I know I had it flagged for a certain sweater pattern (can't remember what now); but when the yarn arrived it was very much not black. The yarn is a charcoal gray color, which is nice and all, but at the time it was just not what I had expected so I wasn't super happy with it. So this yarn sat for 4 years with no project in mind for it, making it perfect for this sweater :) And it turned out that I had the exact amount I needed - meaning "I had to unravel about half of my gauge swatch to finish this" exact amount. Kismet!

One thing I have noticed about Andi's patterns over the many years of knitting them up is that the shoulders always end up too wide on me. Given that I've lost weight and my other sweaters are all too big, I went down to a size Medium for this project. Even with that, the shoulders are still too wide on me. For this style, I think it looks fine, like a design choice, but I think next time I make up one of Andi's patterns I will have to figure out the alterations to narrow the shoulders. 

The real feature of this design is the shawl collar. The entire sweater is stockinette stitch, then the collar is garter stitch, which normally I'm not a huge fan of but I really like the contrast in texture on this sweater. She has a clever short row construction for the collar and it helps it lay nicely. Having said that, the pattern does recommend tacking the collar down to keep it in the right position, which I didn't do yet, but having worn this a few times and having to adjust the collar a lot I known I will be doing that sometime soon.

Interestingly (for me), I actually had no idea what buttons I would use, lol. This was such a quickly envisioned project that I never even thought about my buttons. Even after I finished the knitting, it was over a week before I started looking through my button stash to pick some buttons. The funny thing is that I went with the first option that I picked up - I didn't even dig further in my stash! That is pretty unheard of for me.

I have an entire vial of these buttons in 2 sizes that I grabbed at The Sewing Studio in one of their Annex sales. They are gray and have a slightly iridescent lined design. They looked good + I was in the mood to finish + I was already taking blog photos of my other makes, so I decided to just sew these buttons one and get the pics and call it done, lol. I'm glad I did because now I can wear this when I'm chilly at work.

So that's my Hortencia cardigan :) I really love the finished sweater. I think it will be great over dresses and high waisted skirts (once I make some that fit me). I like the style and color and cotton yarn. So yay for a quick and satisfying project!

Summary:
Yarn: 5 skeins of Cascade Avalon in Pirate Black - $13.90
Pattern: Hortencia by Andi Satterlund - Free (Thank you, Andi!)
Notions: 2 buttons - $0.10
Time: 3 weeks
Total Cost: $ 14.00

FO: Recoleta Cardigan

It feels like ages since I last posted a finished sweater! It's actually been since November, so really not that long, but compared to my usual turn out it just feels like a while. After finishing all my obligatory knitting for Christmas and whatnot, I had the itch to make a slightly complex sweater. I had a major case of start-itis at the end of January (which I talked about here) and this sweater was my most tempting project from that bout (none of the other things are finished yet, lol). Anyway I've had this planned for years, so I'm thrilled to finally have it to wear.

This is the Recoleta pattern by Joji Locatelli. I've admired it for a few years now and finally decided to bite the bullet. I've only done a few sweaters with multiple charts to follow, so it felt a bit intimidating at first. In reality this wasn't bad at all. I pulled out my grandma's old cross stitch magnet board for the charts and stacked them one above the other, then carried a piece of paper to cover over what I've already done and show me each line with magnets as I went. I also made sure to make my row with small sticky notes as well in case things moved around in my bag (which they did frequently). With those guides to help me, the charts were no problem to follow. The back lace is certainly the more impressive looking area. I love this lace pattern and I really enjoyed knitting it. In fact I liked it so much that I carried it all the way to the hem instead of changing to ribbing across that section like the pattern calls for. I am very happy with this choice and the lace pattern is nice and stretchy so it's a perfect substitute (and much prettier).

And a closer look at that lovely lace :) I just love the texture overall and that's very difficult to show in a photo - it has a great variation of depth in the lace from the knits and purls. This yarn really helped the stitch pattern pop out. I used Cascade Venezia Worsted, a lovely 70% merino wool 30% silk blend. The yarn has a very nice shine and it is quite warm - that might not be what I was hoping for with living in Florida, but it will be good in winter, lol. The yarn is smooth and soft and it was lovely to knit with. I grabbed 6 skeins of the Van Dyke Brown colorway from Craftsy for a great price back in 2015 specifically for this sweater and I used 5.5 skeins so it all worked out very well.

And here you get a glimpse of the other star of this show - the shawl collar :) The collar is the same thickness down the front and around the back, giving a nice bunch up at the back of the neck. This is actually where you start knitting the sweater! The construction was really neat - you use a provisional cast on, knit a rectangle of the collar in one direction, then take out your cast on and knit the same in the other direction, then you pick up stitches between the two and grow from there into a cardigan. Magic!

I love the nice wide panels of the lace down the front. Again - look at that texture - love it! I went for a more fitted look on this but still long and long sleeved. A lot of the samples show more overlap of the lace panels on the front, and I could make them overlap more with a shawl pin or something, but I wanted to go for the more open front look I've seen so much lately and I'm happy with how it turned out.

My only niggle about the fit is in the shoulders. I've only made 1 other raglan sweater, so I didn't really know any changes I would need to make ahead of time and you really can't tell until the sleeves are on and then it's done. The raglan "seams" are a smidge too tight, so when I put the sweater on I have to put both arms in and then give an extra tug at the shoulder on each side to make it sit right. I see in these photos I still didn't get it sitting in the right place :/ I made a size Large all over except the sleeves themselves. I knitted almost one complete sleeve before trying it on and deciding it was too tight and I wouldn't be happy with the fit. So I ripped that out and added more stitches at the underarm - I believe I did XL instead of L for the stitch count and it all worked great. Now the sleeves are comfy but the raglan is still tight. I think I just needed a touch more length on the raglan seam. Ah, well. It's not that big a deal - just something to think about next time I come across this construction.

Overall I really love this sweater. I love the style, love the lace, love the yarn. If only I could reasonably expect to wear it soon, but I will get to sometime. Interestingly I made this hoping it would take a good chunk of time to complete and I made it in 3 months, so technically it was more time than I usually do given that it's in worsted weight yarn, but still given the more complex multiple charts situation it took a little time. All in all a lovely way to spend my random spare time, wouldn't you say? Now that this is finished I can focus on my other projects started in January before letting myself start another sweater :)

Summary:
Yarn: 5.52 skeins of Cascade Venezia Worsted in Van Dyke Brown - $40.00
Pattern: Recoleta by Joji Locatelli
Time: 3 months

Overnight Jacksonville Trip (Plus Yarn Shopping!)

My husband needed to go to Jacksonville, and luckily I was able to switch my day off so I could join him :) We drove up after I got off work last night and stayed at the Baymeadows Embassy Suites. It was a really nice hotel:

The atrium was really pretty, plus they had a great continental breakfast :) Justin had to do his thing while I checked us out and I had a few hours to meander around Jacksonville by myself. Since I didn't have any other set plans, I checked to see if there were any local yarn stores near our hotel before we left. How lucky was it that KnitWitz was only about 15 minutes away!

I have to admit, I was a little scared (isn't that ridiculous?) since my last experience with a small yarn shop did not go so well. I am happy to report that this shop was the polar opposite of my last adventure. It was such a lovely shop! Check out all that yarn :) Mmmmm... I got to squeeze the yarn to my hearts content, making my own way around the store and asking prices when I was curious. The shop workers were very helpful and nice. Beautiful yarn selection and nice people, what more could you ask for?!

This is my "I'm in an awesome yarn store!" face :) lol Slightly crazed but really excited. I had a very nice time getting to see all these high end yarns in person and getting to touch them. I've gotten pretty good at buying yarn online, but really nothing compares to the in person experience.

I went into the shop with no specific needs in mind. I just wanted to get at least one skein as a 'souvenir' from my few hours in Jacksonville. This Classic Elite Liberty Light Wool was a serious contender. It was so soft and light and the colors were deliciously vibrant. But when it came down to it, I just didn't know what I would do with it since it's a sport weight (most of the patterns I have that call for sport are for sweaters and I didn't want to spend quite that much), so I pressed on.

The last section I came to was full of various types of sock yarn. I started squeezing around and fell in love with Cascade Heritage Sock. Incidentally I do already have one skein of this in Como Blue, but I just liked it so much I had to grab this one :) This color is called burgundy and it's a beautiful deep color. I'm not sure yet if I want to make it into a shawl or a pair of socks, but once I do I know I will always remember where and when I got the yarn.

Even though I was only in Jacksonville for a couple of hours (in fact my husband called to say he was finished while I was in the yarn shop), I had a lot of fun and if I'm ever back in the area, I will definitely visit KnitWitz again :)

Knitting Update: Pleated Cloche Baby Hat

It's done! This is a special baby gift for my friend Heather :) I was really excited when she requested this hat. I've had this pattern for about a year but I've never had any baby girls coming along to make it for! Now I can officially cross it off my list.

This is the Pleated Cloche Hat from 60 Baby Knits. I have to say that I was a little surprised when I read that the pleated section and the color band is done on straight needles and then seamed together. "What?!" I thought, "That's probably just because the writer doesn't like dpns. I'll just do it all in the round!" Oh cocky me! Turns out there is a very good reason you knit it flat first - the color changing. This is my first ever real color changing project, so I really had no idea this was the reason until I started going on it. If I had followed the directions, I would have knitted each color back and forth. Since I did it all in the round, I had no choice but to cut the yarn after each color change. Once I had it all knitted, I went back and had to tie the two pinks together where they meet, and weave in the ends. All. 44. Of. Them. Yeah, that wasn't so much fun and it felt like it took just as long as making the whole hat, lol.

This is the result of my tying - a bunched up middle section. I was able to cover one side with the super cute bow, but this side is out there for all to see. I also had some random issues because the pattern is a little vague. I was able to fix them, but honestly if Heather was a knitter I would be embarrassed to give it to her lol. At least it looks cute from the outside! Oh, and I made this in the recommended yarn for the pattern. This is Cascade 220 Superwash in Aran, Strawberry Pink and Salmon.

I can't wait to give this to Heather and see it on a little baby head :)