FO: Endearment Cardigan

Now that I've caught up with posting all the gifts I made, I have (chronologically) finally reached this sweater. This project took me just over 2 years to finish (for many reasons lol), but I finally got it done in February of 2022.

This is the Endearment sweater by Hanna Maciejewska. This was a case of wanting to find a project for this stashed yarn and also wanting to make this sweater pattern. I've never been one for variegated yarns because I just can't figure out what to do with them. This yarn looked lovely in the hank, but knit up it gave me kind of girly camo vibes, which I am not about (I'm still scarred from the late 90s with that one). But I felt like giving some visual interest to the front with this cool lace pattern would distract me from what I didn't love about the color of the yarn. The yarn itself is lovely, though. It's Araucania Huasco Btany Lace in the Carmine colorway. This yarn is 100% merino wool and it's so soft and squishy. I picked up 3 skeins of this in the clearance on Webs back in 2014, and after sitting so long I just really wanted to use it up and not feel guilty about it, lol.

So I started knitting. Ah, look at younger, smaller, February of 2020 me. So hopeful, lol. I brought this with me when visiting my then boyfriend in Sarasota and I was loving working on it and whipped up the yoke really quickly. Things went great until I had to start with another skein of yarn. All these were from the same dye lot, so I didn't think about checking to see how the colors blended, just assuming they would be the same. NEVER ASSUME THIS! This is a hand painted yarn, so even though it was dyed together, the dye did not take the same on all the yarn. In fact each skein was a different depth of the same colors and it was jarring enough for me to stop and wonder what the heck I should do. I tried alternating the 2 remaining skeins, but the darker skein was just overtaking everything. I was so bummed about it that I just set this aside while I worked on other things. For months and months.

I picked it back up in August of 2020 and decided to just forge ahead with the body because it got slightly darker and I didn't mind it so much as it went lower if that makes sense. These photos were when I decided I had to start knitting the sleeves to make sure I had enough yarn to finish them, but I had the same old problem. Just look at that color jog! Ugh. This renewed my frustration all over again, and since it was fall and time for knitting gifts, I set this aside yet again. I'm honestly not sure when I picked it up again - probably a year later. I'm not one to have a lot of unfinished objects going at once because it makes me feel guilty to start anything new, so this one weighed on me for quite a while. Eventually in early 2022, I picked this up and was DETERMINED to finish it this time. No matter what the set backs were. 

Because I was working with only 3 skeins and the yarn was discontinued, I had to make the sleeves before finishing the body. I wanted to include the cute split cuff on the sleeve and then I just made the body as long as the remaining yarn would allow. You can still see the color difference between that first skein and the other 2, which feels very in your face with it being so abrupt at the bicep area, but oh well. At least it's done, lol.  I do like the cuff though - I think it's a cute detail.

The back has the same split, which honestly helps with the fitted nature of how this turned out for me. I started this sweater when I was like 30 lbs lighter weight, and while it does still fit now because knitting is so stretchy, I do feel like it's a bit snug. That's very much in flux still (I gained weight from a medical issue and now I'm losing what I had gained), so this shouldn't be an issue in the future. I managed to get this sweater out of the 3 skeins and only using half of my gauge swatch, so that's a win lol. That's really the only negative part of getting yarn like I do - if you run out, there's no getting more. But hey - it's way cheaper! The ups and downs of a yarn stash, friends.

I really love the lace and cable pattern on this sweater. It was easy to memorize after the first few repeats and then it was pretty smooth sailing. I also like the button band - it's different to any other I've knit before and I like the 2 buttons being closer together. I had the perfect lavender buttons in my stash as well, which is always a great thing.

And as ever, I lined the button band with rayon petersham ribbon, also from my stash. I always do this on a fitted sweater so it doesn't look like I'm hulking out of it when it's buttoned up. Just personal preference, but I feel it's well worth the extra work. 

 

My girls wanted to be in on the photos, lol. All in all, despite all the frustrations and set backs, I'm happy with the finished product. I will confess it's not one that I reach for as much as my solid colored sweaters simply because I don't have as many outfits it can go with, but I don't feel like the color issues are so much a problem when I'm wearing it. No one notices but me, so I'm fine with that. This felt like an epic make, but I got there in the end, and I'm glad I pushed through to get it done.

Summary:

Yarn: 3 skeins Araucania Huasco Botany Lace in Carmine - $33.12

Pattern: Endearment by Hanna Maciejewska - $7.50

Notions: Rayon Petersham Ribbon - $3.50, 14 buttons - $0.25 (thrifted)

Time: 2 years, 1 month lol

Total Cost: $44.37

FO: Antarktis Shawl

Guys, I am on a roll with finishing old projects. I started this project on January 30, 2016, lol. That's a stupid long time for such a simple shawl. In my defense I started this at the same time as several other projects (all of which ended up on my list of WIPs at the end of the year, lol) so it was hard to devote enough time to just this one. Anyway, on to the pictures!

This is the Antarktis shawl by Janina Kallio. I saw it randomly on Ravelry and added it to my favorites quite a while ago and then just kind of forgot about it until one day when I wanted to use a certain skein of yarn :) I bought this skein of Araucania Lonco on ebay a while ago, and last January I was on a stash busting kick, so I started looking through Ravelry for fingering weight 1 skein projects that would work with a variegated cotton, and here we are. I bought this yarn because 1) it was a great deal at just $5.99 including shipping and 2) I loved the color combination. I knew it was cotton when I bought it, so I knew it would have to be a shawl or something.

Also while it's a pretty design and I liked the finished project pics and was excited to have the shawl to wear, I found the project a bit boring to knit. I guess I just like the constant change and easy to see progress of making sweaters. I'm always good with shawls in the beginning since they quickly start to take shape, but when the rows start getting longer I find it harder to keep interested. Thus this project was constantly set aside for other things.

I started at first with a size 6 needle as the pattern suggested, but when I got a ways into the first garter stitch section I pulled it out to test the resulting fabric. Since this is a cotton (and therefor has no halo whatsoever) I found the size 6 needle made the fabric a bit too spaced out. I liked the painterly quality other finished projects had on Ravelry and knew there would be too much separation of stitches with the size 6 needle. So I sized down to a 4 and I like the resulting fabric much better :)

You can see it better here - the pattern is extremely simple, made entirely of the occasional yarn over, k2tog, and kfb. That's as hard as it gets. You just keep going until it reaches a certain number of stitches and then switch to the next stitch pattern. I particularly like the lattice section in this yarn. The colors are vibrant enough to stand out even with so much open work. This makes it very pretty to wear.

One draw back to my choosing this yarn is that the shawl is not particularly drapey - it likes to be put in a position and pinned to stay there. Also blocking this was quite a challenge - I've never wished I had blocking wires more in my life. Because this has so much lace it looks pretty crumpled up and sad just after you knit it. Even the pattern says not to worry if your finished shawl looks the size of a dinner napkin, lol. Once this had a good soak (mostly in an effort to remove excess dye which was coming off on my hands as I knitted), I pinned it out on one side and pulled as hard as the piece could handle. I seriously stretched this thing within an inch of its life. It took a lot of going back and situating to get it mostly smooth at the edges, but I'm very pleased with the result considering this was all done with pins.

As you can see it came out a very nice size. A kind of weird thing happened though that I still don't understand - I only used just over half a skein of yarn for this entire shawl. Every other project on Ravelry lists that they used almost 400 yards, but I only used 260 yards. I kept going back to check, but all my numbers added up and I did not skip anything. My shawl even turned out a similar size to what I've seen online. The only changes I made were to knit this in cotton and to go down 2 needle sizes, and while I understand the needle size will change your yardage I can't possibly imagine it would change things that much. So the project that was designed to use up a pretty skein has left me with almost half of it to use in the future, lol. Ah well. It is pretty though. It has a very water color feel to it I think.

Realistically the shawl will be worn more like this (actually I've worn it already but shifted more to the side and with a shawl pin at my shoulder), meaning it will be a bit more scrunched up and treated like a scarf. I'm glad to finally have this finished and be able to wear it. I'm also glad that it's cotton so it will be light enough to actually wear year round here :)

Summary:
Yarn: Araucania Lonco Multi in colorway 4008 - $5.99 (bought on ebay)
Pattern: Antarktis by Janina Kallio
Time: Not quite 1 year, lol