Carbeth Cardigan Finished

I finished this cardigan over a week ago and I cannot remember if I wrote about it or not. It was the one that I had almost finished when I was in MO last time but I needed extra needle sets for the different parts so I had to wait til I got back. Of course, this has not yet been blocked.

I started this sweater in 2018 and didn’t like making it so I put it aside. I wasn’t going to finish it but never could bring myself to rip it out, then a few months ago, I decided to finish it. Since it had been started before we lost weight, even though I’ve gained some of the weight back, the original sweater was too big but since I wanted it to be more like a jacket, I went ahead with knitting it. But, after adding three or four more inches, I went to try it on and it was obvious that my knitting had changed and the new knitting looked different from the old knitting, plus it was really bigger than I wanted it to be and I do hope to lose weight again so I ripped it all out and started over.

While I really like the fit of the sweater, I didn’t like making it. There were several things – not wrong but just different from any way I’ve ever made sweaters. Some people love the pattern and have made multiples of it. I’m not ruling out making another one because I like the finished project that much but . . I’ll have to think about it.

The things I love about it:

• Collar – The collar is knitted twice as long as needed and then folded in on itself so it’s double thick. There was a three needle bind off, which I had never done before and that wasn’t bad.
• Buttonholes – There’s an I-cord down both sides of the front button bands and the buttonholes are part of the I-cord. I had never done that before and I really like it and will probably use that technique again. You may remember that I had been using ribbon on the button side of the button band because some of the buttons are heavy and cause the button band to stretch or sag. The only way to put the ribbon on the buttonhole side would be to figure out where the buttonholes will fall on the ribbon, cut the ribbon, heat it to “melt” the fiber so it doesn’t fray, and hope it lines up when you add it. On the button side, you’re sewing the buttons to the ribbon and the button band but on the buttonhole side, you make the buttonholes while knitting and then attach the ribbon later. So, with the I-cord buttonholes, you can still stabilize the buttonhole side with ribbon and it won’t interfere with the buttonholes. I hope that makes sense.

These are the buttons I ordered and they arrived yesterday. I do need to get them sewn on and get this blocked. Sweater weather is here, though I see an 85 degree day in our forecast for later this week.

The sizes of these photos – definitely not the right proportion. These buttons are 3/4″.

I usually block things as I finish them but we haven’t had the air or heat on in a while and I try to only do the soaking/blocking when we’re running the air or the heat so it doesn’t take things a month to dry.