I am so excited to show off my finished Mohn Cardigan ;) Before I get fully into it though, I have a crazy announcement - I created a YouTube video about this pattern review!
I feel like our attention have turned to video instead of blogs ever since the feed readers shut down years ago, and since I enjoy watching content like this on YouTube myself, I decided to jump right in and start making videos. I plan on doing regular posting there and I will always link the video here as well. My channel is also called ShowandTellMeg and I will post content basically just like I blog aboutm so please subscribe if you are interested :)
Ok so the Mohn Cardigan! This is the first design released by Engineering Knits who is a vintage making YouTube creator I love to watch. She purchased this physical sweater as a vintage piece and it was so popular on her channel that she tried to find the original vintage pattern for people to make one of their own only to come up empty handed. So she looked over her finished item and created a pattern to replicate it, then she graded that out into a modern size range and released it for all of us to enjoy and I think it is just the coolest thing.
I did have to make some changes to my sweater - first off, I knit the body 2 dot repeats longer than written. I have a long torso - this is a standard alteration for me. I also like a more fitted waist look than this was designed to give, so I knit a 38 inch size when I have a 40 inch bust. I figure the bust area can stretch a bit and it will help the waist be closer to my actual waist measurement. I also had to make extra decreases at the sleeve head to avoid poofyness, which was not entirely successful. Looking at the example photos from testers and whatnot, this doesn't seem to be an issue for other people, so I chalk this up entirely to some unknown mistake I made when knitting that first sleeve. The second sleeve did not have the same extra section of stitches but it still had a bit too much ease and gives a bit of a poof. I'm still not really sure what I did to have that happen, but oh well. It's still cute :)
I don't know why all my back photos turned out so blurry, but here it is. I used Knit Picks Upcycle Alpaca Blend Sport yarn for this because they had a crazy sale the week of Black Friday and had this yarn for $2 per skein. I bought a bunch of different colors so I was able to lay out different combos and see what I liked. I settled on Sapphire for the base with Black Pearl and Arctic for the dots and I really like how this turned out. I've actually never knitted with alpaca before because everyone always says it's so warm and this is Florida, but this is a blend of wool, alpaca, and acrylic so I thought I would give it a try and it's really not too bad heat wise since this is a sport weight.
I worked very hard to make sure that all my dot rows lined up across the sleeve area. I feel that this is one of those extra details that you don't really pay attention to when it's done well but that would look super off if you didn't line it up. I had to keep counting the bobbles on the example photos and counting back to make sure I started with the right colored dot on the sleeves since these were knit bottom up, and it was a bit stressful but it worked out fine so it was worth it. I also love the jaunty little collar! My hair covers it most of the time, but I think it's a fun little detail.
I did stabilize the button bands with petersham ribbon as per usual. Some of the other versions I've see showed that this button band is very stretchy so the buttons seem to be pulling if the sweater is more fitted. Petersham ribbon solves that problem and I think it just cleaned everything up so nicely.
Realistically this is how I will wear the sweater in real life and I like how it looks unbuttoned as well. I wore it to church the morning after I sewed the button bands and it was comfy and cute - a little warm but then everyone turns on the heat right now so I'm withholding judgement until I get to wear it in a normally air conditioned place.
So that's my Mohn Cardigan :) I love how it turned out and it was so fun to knit! I still can't believe I finished a sport weight sweater in just a month and it's entirely because I always wanted to just get through the next color row. If you like the look of this sweater, I hope you give this pattern a try, and if you want to learn more of the details please check out my video review and let me know what you think over there!
Well I finished the body of my Mohn cardigan and I'm still absolutely loving it :) I haven't seamed the shoulders yet, so it is just pinned to the mannequin because I wanted to see how it was looking and I am super pleased. I think I'll get the fitted look I was going for, which is great. Now I'm working on the button bands and collar before moving onto the sleeves. Over the years I have just preferred to have the sleeves be the final part of a sweater making experience, so that's what I'm going to do.
I love how the texture is looking. People say that it flattens out a bit when you wear it, so I'm curious to see how it looks finished and blocked. We will see. It's still going so fast - seriously this is sport weight and I started it just over 2 weeks ago. Crazy.
Some sewing has actually occurred! It feels a bit like a miracle. This is my Decades of Style New England dress that I cut out back in November. I have worked on it here and there, but not very much in all honesty. To be real with you - my sewing room is an absolute disaster. Normally I can just push things around or move them to a corner pile, etc, but I have so much new stuff from Christmas and whatnot that there is no moving this mess around. I really need to have a drag it all out, get rid of, organize, and put it back session in a big big way, but I just haven't had the time or space elsewhere in my house to do that. So I kind of have to force myself to sew. I always enjoy it once I get going, but the mess is a big imposition. I'm hoping to finish this sometime later this week because I am doing long sleeves and I want to get to wear it while it's still cool outside as much as possible. I realize you can't see much because it's all black, but trust me - it's cute.
And in other news, we have a swallowtail caterpillar! I bought some herbs at a garden center and I always look for caterpillars on the dill plants. We found one and he is growing nicely. I just love watching him crawl around and contort to eat, lol. He is now big enough that I had to put him in a netting enclosure so he doesn't fall on the floor or something. This is not our first experience with hatching butterflies this way, and I am easily just as excited to watch him as my kids, lol.
