For some reason? the idea of knitting myself a *fitted* garment still scares the heck out of me. Maybe this stems from the fact that I have always had issues with the way that clothes fit?
I am three apples tall? a fair bit under the five foot mark, though with my affinity for high heeled shoes you might not have realized at this point! my 4 foot 10 inch frame, as one can imagine, does not always lend itself to clothing fitting right off the rack.
I shorten everything. Jeans? generally at least 3 inches needs to be removed from each pair. Dresses? Let the bust out, bring the hem up, blah blah blah. Sweaters? they either fit or they don?t. I always feel badly for the clothing store clerks when they see me coming out of the dressing room with a ginormous armload of outfits? Clerk: ?So you?ll be taking those then?? Me: ?um nope, that?s the No Pile? Sigh.
So not surprisingly, a standard Cardigan ? I fear ? when knitted exactly as intended to the letter of the pattern? Will likely not fit. I know I will need to deviate from the pattern at some point to customize the piece to fit my shorter and slightly rounder figure. (Yes, I *would* like another bowl of icecream? thank you. It?s summertime.)
Liesl (by Scottish knitter and designer Ysolda Teague ? available for sale here) seemed like a good first time foray into the world of fitted garments.
The piece is cast on at the neck line, and knit from the top down. You can stop, try it on, and then continue knitting to see how it fits. The entire body is knit in one piece, and then the arms are done by picking up stitches and then continuing down until the desired length is reached. It sounds simple? knit, try it on, repeat until satisfied. Even I should be able to do that.
The Fabric is a very open lace knit on large needles. This means it is Stretchy? and hopefully fairly forgiving. Also, because it knits up fast, I hope that if I mess up, it won?t take too long to redo. I made a mistake a few years ago on a ?jacket? style sweater, and I would have had to frog nearly the entire thing to fix it. I opted to keep it, mistake and all, and as a result I only wear it if I am completely freezing? and no-one will see me in it!
Another bonus is that this pattern can be knit from THREE (yes only Three) skeins of Malabrigo Worsted. The non-knitters out there are probably thinking ? what is this Malabrigo, and why is she going so nuts about it?
This. Yarn. Is. One. Of. The. SOFTEST. Things. On. The. Planet!
Normally, the thought of spending money on enough yarn to knit a cardigan, and then potentially messing up said cardigan and never finishing it? would terrify me to the point that I wouldn?t take the chance. For most cardigan style projects the yarn can be costly. One particular wool cardigan I had considered for a while would require that I buy 8-9 balls of a specific yarn? which cost 10.50$ Canadian per ball! If I knew I would love the finished sweater, than I could be ok with that.
Liesl, only requiring 3 balls of Malabrigo at a cost of 10$ a piece? means only a 30$ Investment. I can live with that.
As you can see? (yes, that is my new bathroom? why do you ask?) I have completed the yoke and main body of the cardigan and have moved on to the sleeves. Number one is almost completed, and I plan to start on Number two if the humidity/heat wave ever lets up. It?s been too hot in the evenings to have a cardigan laying over my lap.
I hope to finish this in the next week or so? and then attach the Vintage Mother-of-Pearl Button that was rescued from my Grandmother?s fantastic Button Stash. It was a one of a kind? so this will be a perfect way to showcase it!