Biker boy cardigan

There goes my first cardigan! I’m very pleased with the result, it looks great, if I say so myself. I’m convinced my husband will actually wear it more than the one obligatory time. So that is one marriage saved!

What I liked
It’s a plain stockinette stitch. I know a lot of people are put off by projects like that because they think it gets very boring, but I don’t. For me, it means relaxed knitting, without having to think about the pattern too much. I could sit back, knit, and enjoy numerous episodes of Grey’s anatomy. And Weeds. And The Big Bang Theory. In other words, it makes a great excuse for my couch potato syndrome 🙂

The sleeves are knit in. No fussing about afterwards to get them exactly right, the pattern forces you to get them in where they need to be. And the way it’s done looks so nice. This definitely is a way of knitting that I hope to encounter more.

The neck is finished so it has a lining. Extra thick and extra warm. It gives it a cozy look. I actually like wearing it myself. Too bad it’s way too large for me.

There’s hardly any seams to close up afterwards. The only ones there are in the bottom half of the sleeves, next to the vertical stripe. And I guess you can avoid these as well by doing the whole sleeve in the round, instead of knitting flat and then joining. Maybe something I’ll do next time!

Rough patches
Casting on stitches for the sleeves was a bit of a mystery at first. Since there is a vertical stripe in them, I needed to change colours at one point. It puzzled me, and I really didn’t have a clue how to do it. While, in fact, it’s not that difficult at all. Just like you do when you need to switch to a new ball or when you are working intarsia, you need to twist the old yarn with the new yarn, and then move on as if nothing ever happened. Just make sure to twist it rather tightly, since this is the edge of your sleeve.

The skull patch was a bit difficult as well, but, once again, that was completely my fault. I didn’t know what technique to use, so I started doing stranded knitting. Not the best choice. It looked like a skull, but I had been pulling my yarn too tightly and it made the patch look rather lumpy instead of straight. So I frogged it and started over, doing intarsia this time. Way better.

Not really a rough patch, but certainly a time consumer: getting the zipper in. The pattern says to wash the cardigan first, before you measure it for a zipper. And then I still had to get to the store to get the zipper. And then, of course, get my sewing machine out to get the zipper in.

What I altered
This pattern has really long sleeves, so I added thumbholes to them. My hubby wanted them, and I thought it was a great idea. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as just leaving a hole while doing the seam of the sleeve. Because both sleeves are knit in exactly the same way and because this also involves a vertical stripe, the seam ends up in a different place when you get the sleeves in. So, for the right sleeve, I could just leave a bit of the seam open to get a thumbhole. But for the left sleeve, the seam ended up slightly to the back. So, to get the thumbhole right, I had to steek. That’s right, I had to cut my hard work! I’ll explain how I did that in a separate post. I must say it made me a little bit nervous, but once I saw the result, I knew it was worth it. I’m never doubting the steek method again.

All in all, knitting this cardigan took me about 1,5 months. I was really motivated to get this right and I concentrated on this project alone. It was quite addictive as well, I wanted to pick up my needles to get on with it almost all the time. At first I thought it would take me forever, with the renovations in the new house and everything. But now I think that I needed a project that’s not related to that house in any way, just to get my mind off it. And it sure worked! I should pick out another cardigan or sweater to knit soon. Maybe for myself this time, haha.