Blue Cabled Cardigan Finished!

I am very happy to say that between the time I finished knitting all the pieces of my blue cabled cardigan and the time I sewed all the pieces together, no more than 2 or 3 weeks have passed, with an extra week to wash and dry it and deciding my cardigan needed some buttons.

The knitting pattern did not provide for buttons but mentioned that a shawl pin can be added if the cardigan was to be worn closed, so I knitted as per the instructions, without any buttonholes.

Last night I tried making a flower pin using a large safety pin to keep my cardigan closed but I wasn't happy with it, so this morning I added a crochet button band on one edge and 4 nice wooden buttons on the other side. The cardigan was then ready to be worn in public after roughly 2 months of starting it (please don't judge my awkward posture, I just don't know how to stand without looking weird):

Front

Back

 Now I must get on with my St Patrick's day scarf which I'm not sure I will dare wear in public: I might just hang it in the house as a decoration, but that's something I won't share here until Paddy's Day.



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Blue Knitted Cabled Cardigan Nearly Finished

Back in January, I started knitting the "Chocolate Passion Cabled Jacket" from a free knitting pattern I found on Ravelry. Well, I can't really call mine "Chocolate", as it's blue.

I'm very happy to say I got all the pieces finished since yesterday. I did encounter a few problems along the way, why is bound to happen when you read the instructions too quickly and if you haven't knitted a full garment like this for a while.

The back piece had to be ripped partly and re-knitted twice but overall, I am glad I spent no more than 6 weeks doing all of the pieces. It would have taken less time if I hadn't been doing other projects between each piece, but knitting and crocheting small things in between helped me not getting bored with it.

Here's a picture of all 5 pieces on my kitchen table:

Knitted blue cardigan before assembling

Yes I know, it doesn't look like a cardigan yet, and the most difficult part is yet to be done: the dreaded sewing all the pieces together without making it bunch or having the tell-tale sewing lines showing on the outside!

I am hoping to get it all together before next week, but first I must procrastinate by knitting lots of little daffodils and crocheting children's hats for charity!

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Knitting My Blue "Chocolate Passion" Cabled Cardigan

I've been hesitant about knitting large projects because of how time consuming they are, but rather than heading to Penneys and buy some cheap "I hope I won't look like everyone else around here" piece of junk, I've finally decided to start knitting a nice cardigan for myself.

A while ago, I bookmarked a free knitting cardigan pattern in Ravelry with nice cables that I really liked and I happened to have a blue yarn in my stash, not the one specified in the pattern, but a similar weight yarn for which I managed to get the same gauge.

The pattern is called Chocolate Passion jacket with cables but of course, since the wool I'm using is blue, I can't call it that.

January isn't the best time to cast on a winter cardigan pattern, especially since I'm still at the same time learning how to crochet, trying to stock up my Etsy shop with more knitted headbands and studying my double-knitting online course, but since I live in Ireland where the weather can be unpredictable, I guess I'll still be able to wear it in May or June, in between 2 mini heatwaves. And if my knitting is too slow, there's still next winter (a full 11 months and 3 weeks' long one, ha ha!).

It's a funny knitting pattern for a cardigan, as it begins with the back, but at about a quarter high, and the lower back piece is knitted with the fronts, (I guess I'll have to do some sewing afterwards to join them all together, sigh!).

The cardigan has lots of lovely cables and the picture of the finished knitted cabled jacket looks amazing: I hope mine will look beautiful too. If it turns out the way it's supposed to, I'll be wearing it a lot to show off my cable knitting skills!

Here's what I have knitted so far:

Middle back of my blue "chocolate passion" cable cardigan

I'll try and keep sharing my progress here, in between crochet and double-knitting bits and bobs and hopefully some of the ideas that keep popping up in my head - I think I'm suffering from knitting ADHD, wanting to do it all at the same time:-)

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