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

FO: Blaster Cardigan

I finished a sweater! Hooray! It seems the only thing that gets me motivated to make sure I knit lately is if Andi Satterlund hosts a knit along, lol. Real life has just been nuts and I just can't justify all the knitting time I used to. Hopefully once things are more stable in my life, that will change. I feel like I start every post this same way, and I'm certainly not trying to make excuses or justify my lack of projects at all - there's no one keeping score here. It's just kind of a bummer because I love to make things so much, you know? So when I do manage to get something made, I'm pretty excited about it :) Anyway, on with the sweater deets!

This is the Blaster Cardigan by Andi Satterlund, which is her newest open release (it was released before as part of a subscription service or something, but now it's available to everyone). I liked the design immediately - fairly simple but interesting just like her other designs. This one is a bit more mod looking with the triangular lace pattern, but I was excited to knit it up :)

Things just got a little interesting when looking for yarn to make this with. With my budget right now, I've been trying not to buy any yarn. I just have so much in my stash it feels silly to buy more, you know? But my stash is almost entirely worsted and fingering weight yarns, even a decent amount of bulky weight, but there is a huge void of DK and sport weight, particularly in sweater quantities. I did just have my estate sale though, and I sold 2 entire buckets full of cheapy acrylic yarn I was never going to use so I justified looking for yarn :) I found a great deal on this Filatura Di Crosa Zara yarn on ebay and I decided to buy it. I mean the way I look at it - I made a little more than what I paid for this nice yarn when selling my acrylic yarn, so technically I traded the cheap yarn for the good stuff, lol. I've worked with Zara before, but it was when I first started knitting so I really couldn't appreciate the quality. This stuff is delicious! I just love to feel it all the time, which made the knitting process that much more enjoyable.

I knitted this in the time period for the knit along, so I started September 17th and finished October 25th. I just knit-knit-knitted whenever I could and then immediately blocked it. As soon as it dried and I looked at the back I had to laugh. Can you see why?

I misaligned 1 stitch. I freakin' stitch! And I have to live with it forever, lol. Oh well. It's a bummer, but I don't think it's super obvious unless people are staring hard at my back (weirdos) so I'm not going to worry about it. I just can't believe I didn't notice before now since I'd seen it happen a few other times and I tinked back to fix it just a few rows later, so how this one slipped past me for half of the back I just don't know. Anyway - live and learn, I guess :/

The other details of the sweater came out really nice. I chose some iridescent white shank buttons from my stash I've had for a while and I like the look. I tend to wear things like this with white shirts underneath, so I think the white buttons echo the white that will show through the eyelet holes. I didn't back the button band yet because I didn't have any ribbon on hand that was narrow enough and I wanted to get this finished before the end of the knit along, but I will probably go back and do that later when I get some ribbon that works. The buttons don't pull very bad though, so it's fine for now. The triangles also came out really nicely. I had to do some thinking on my feet while knitting them due to an error in the pattern, but that has been fixed now so it should be smooth sailing for anyone who makes this in the future.

I did have another unfortunate thing happen with this sweater. There was a good deal of questioning about the gauge when everyone first started knitting it - it's a much tighter gauge than Andi's other patterns. Andi confirmed that this was deliberate and she was going for a much thicker fabric, so I just trusted the pattern and ended up having to use a size 4 needle. My swatch blocked to the exact stitch gauge but slightly short in the row gauge, which is normal for me and I just compensate with length and when I start decreases, etc. No big deal. So I knitted the whole sweater, trying it on as I went and I loved the fit - just like it was meant to look every time I tried it on. So I weaved in the ends, and immediately put it in a tub to block it. I soaked it for 30 minutes, then gently rolled it in a towel and stepped on it to soak up excess water, then laid it out on my blocking board and started pinning - all standard practices that I've done with every sweater. Thinking this was not a super wash yarn, I was very careful not to agitate too much and cause any felting, etc. This is not my first rodeo. As soon as I got the sweater laid on in the right shape though, I noticed that the bust looked pretty wide. I measured it and found it was at 44" around. I knitted the size Large which has a 41" bust like I always do because that amount of negative ease is much more flattering on me. I still don't really understand what happened. I did everything right - multiple swatches for gauge, careful blocking, etc. - yet it still came out much too big. The result is that there's some bunching going on in my arm pits. also my sleeves seem to shift around and can't decide what length to be. It's fine in the waist because my waist is a bit larger than Andi drafts for, but the looseness in the bust and shoulders makes it look a bit dumpy unfortunately. It's not awful by any means, I just prefer it tight over the bust to give me more of a shape, plus I hate bat wing anything and I have a bit of that going on if I raise my arms at all. It's quite a bummer. I still like the sweater, and I will wear it, but it's baffling nonetheless. Maybe it was the tight gauge relaxing with the weight of all the yarn combined? Maybe it was the merino wool being so soft that it had more give? Maybe a combination? I really want to figure it out to avoid such things in the future. Next time I wash this, I will try being extremely ginger with the blocking and see if I can make it settle at a tighter bust. The one good thing about it being bigger is that the buttons don't pull as badly on the unstabilized band ... so there's that I guess...
*I have since found out that this IS a super wash yarn. I really can't believe I didn't know that before. But apparently it's the super wash chemicals preventing the wool from grabbing itself that causes it to stretch out so much. At least now I know!*

Realistically I will wear it open most of the time anyway, which will greatly disguise my nit picky issues. I actually really love wearing it with my brown Melissa Skirt as the triangular pockets tie in perfectly with the triangular lace in the sweater. Gotta love an unintentional perfect match on pieces you've made yourself.

So there you have it :) My latest sweater. My handmade sweater collection has brightened up considerably in the last year with the coral one and now this one, lol. I've had quite a few "pumpkin" comments sent my way already given the time of year, so I figure I'll go ahead and embrace it and wear this on Monday, ha ha. Maybe I can make a green bow for my hair...

Summary:
Yarn: 10 skeins (actually 9.84) of Filatura Di Crosa Zara yarn in color 1762 - $40
Pattern: Blaster by Andi Satterlund - $5.40
Notions: 10 buttons - $3.00
Time: 6 weeks
Total Cost: $ 48.40