Mean Green
As a yarn collector, I rarely go out and buy yarn for a specific project, which means I have an abundance of sweater quantity yarns silently waiting for the perfect project.
Sometime last year, I bought several skeins of Alisha Goes Around Zeal of Zebra fingering weight yarn (a merino silk blend) in light green. While I actually had a project in mind when I purchased the yarn, the swatch said it was simply not meant to be. So, it languished.
In January, I returned to the Lucky Ewe, where the initial purchase was made, in hopes of finding enough of the same yarn to knit it doubled, i.e., two strands of fingering, at a worsted gauge. That story is here. I ended up picking up additional skeins of Alisha Goes Around Tracks of Bison fingering (a merino bison blend) in a darker green.
When I swatched them together (a strand of each), I got a gorgeous mottled green springy fabric that was a worsted gauge. There were several cardigan possibilities from my queue, but none of them seemed quite right, at least, until Julie Hoover's Crosby pattern was released last month.
The second I saw the pattern, I knew it would work perfectly with my green yarns.
What do you think?
Sometime last year, I bought several skeins of Alisha Goes Around Zeal of Zebra fingering weight yarn (a merino silk blend) in light green. While I actually had a project in mind when I purchased the yarn, the swatch said it was simply not meant to be. So, it languished.
In January, I returned to the Lucky Ewe, where the initial purchase was made, in hopes of finding enough of the same yarn to knit it doubled, i.e., two strands of fingering, at a worsted gauge. That story is here. I ended up picking up additional skeins of Alisha Goes Around Tracks of Bison fingering (a merino bison blend) in a darker green.
When I swatched them together (a strand of each), I got a gorgeous mottled green springy fabric that was a worsted gauge. There were several cardigan possibilities from my queue, but none of them seemed quite right, at least, until Julie Hoover's Crosby pattern was released last month.
The second I saw the pattern, I knew it would work perfectly with my green yarns.
What do you think?
My gauge was spot on!
More importantly, the fabric was just what I wanted, light, airy, and springy to the touch.
The pattern is perfectly written, although there were some special instructions for the sloped bind-off that were omitted in the version I received in Ravelry, but the designer sent them to me in a message.
The only other issue I encountered was with the button band. The instructions state to pick up stitches from the right side of the fabric, knit two rows evenly, then begin the button hole row on the right side.
That did not really work out. If you pick up stitches on the right side, then the first row you knit is wrong side row and the second row is a right side row...ergo, one cannot begin the button hole row on the next row, which would be a wrong side row.
It was no big deal, I just picked up stitches purlwise on the wrong side of the fabric and continued with the instructions as written.
In all, the pattern is excellent and a joy to knit. So much so, it practically fell off my needles with very little effort. I cast on September 9th (that may have even been the day it was released) and finished yesterday October 3rd.
The cables and twisted stitches may appear intimidating, but they are not. The pattern is easily memorized.
I am stifling the urge to knit another one in red...
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