The wool is Mirasol Qulla. Its a blend of Merino Wool with Mulberry Silk. There were only 4 skeins of the colour that I really loved - Ibiza Blue which is really more of a Teal colour. I grabbed all of them, and then grabbed another 2 skeins of the Violet Hill colour as I figured I would need than more than 4 skeins for whatever I wanted to do.
I had to finish up another project before I could get started and then I had to figure out what I wanted to do. I grabbed a set of needles and started knitting a swatch to see what different type of stitches looked like in the yarn. I think I tried about 4 or 5 different stitches before I found one that I loved, It was a series of interlocking cables. Each cable was 4 stitches wide and there were about 10 cables. Now I just had to figure out how to use this.
I didn't want that to be the whole thing, just an accent so I came up with a design that included a cardigan with a cabled edge running around the bottom edge up both sides of the front and then up and over a hood. So now I had to test whether I could turn a corner using the cable detailing - so I picked my swatch back up and tested that.
Yep that works Now how am I going to use the purple accents - I came up with the idea of adding a smaller row of cables inside the blue cables, so had to test that. Yep I love that - but my swatch is now well over a foot long and still growing!
But for the time being I had my cable idea so I got on with that. I had recently made the Paprika Patterns Jasper hoodie sewing pattern and really liked the fit on it so I decided to use that as the basis for my new cardigan. I traced out the pattern and incorporated the side panels into the front and back as well as I could. I then removed all seam allowances and I had a pattern that I could try and follow. I measured how wide my cables swatch was and marked that off on my pattern and measured just how long I would have to make my cable. I started at center back and knitted the cables till I reached the front corner, then turned the corner and knitted up the front of the cardigan. When I got to the shoulder I measured how long I needed to go around the hood and knitted that, then back down the front of the cardigan, turned again at the lower front and back around to the back.
I think I knitted that cable for a good couple of months - it go quite boring after a while, but finally it was done.
Now I had to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of the sweater inside the cable. I picked up my swatch again and started trialing things, moss stitch - nope, seed stitch - nope....in the end I decided that I really did like the look of plain stockinette stitch next to the cable. Once I decided that I still had to decide on what needle size to use. Size two was too tight, size 4 was too loose - so I had to go out and buy a size three circular needle - yep just right. Now to actually swatch for gauge. By the time I finished my swatch was the size of a sweater front and no I'm not kidding - I really wish I had taken a photo of it - it was a work of art in itself. Unfortunately it had to be sacrificed later.
After a bit of maths to figure out how many stitches, increases, decreases etc I needed, the two front pieces were knitted up during a number of my sons baseball games - I mean it's three hours of sitting in the sun watching 9 year olds try and hit and catch a ball I needed something to do. They didn't take too long to do, but the back piece when I got to it was a real plodder - have I finished yet? As I was working I started worrying about how well the sweater would hold it's shape as the stockinette stitch doesn't have a lot of structure to it and so I came up with the idea of knitting another purple cable to run up the side seam and back down the seam of the arm just to provide that little bit of structure needed and I'm glad I did - it really does make it better.
The sleeves were knitted up slowly over the summer and the side cables started and then we hit a snag.......I ran out of yarn. I was totally out all yarn and I still had half of a purple side cable, cabled cuffs in blue and purple and the hood to complete.
I went searching on the internet to try and get some more but the best I could do was $50 for two skeins....that's more than I spent on the rest of the yarn....
And so my cardigan sat in the corner of the room for a good couple of months until one day, visiting my local fabric store Fabric Place Basement - I saw a couple of skeins of mirasol yarn in what looked like the right teal colour. Obviously I didn't have any of my yarn with me to test, but on sale for $14 I couldn't go past it. The only problem was - they had the teal, but the purple they had was definitely a darker purple than what I used. I decided to buy it anyway - I figured I could always return it if I didn't use it.
Once I got it home I realised that whilst it was the same brand it wasn't quite the same wool - this was Mirasol Sulka Legato which has the same merino and silk, but also adds a bit of Alpaca in as well. But the Teal colour was an almost perfect match to the Ibiza Blue so I decided I would just go with it. The Plum purple was definitely very different to the violet Hill however but I came up with the idea of using the violet hill on the outer cable band and up the side seams and then use the plum on the sleeve cuffs and the sleeve seam. Hopefully that way I'll look more deliberate - it's a design feature not a mistake!
I ripped back my side cables to the right length and then started work on the sleeve cables in the plum, which is when I realised that the plum was just a bit thinner than the violet so the cable that it made was a bit smaller - so to compensate instead of using three cables I used 4.
I found out the teal colour was also thinner than the original, so rather than use the new yarn straight away I decided that I would rip out my swatch and reuse the yarn in that. I managed to do both cuffs and start the hood before I ran out!
I was quite proud of my hood design. In order to get the curved hood I used lots and lots of short rows. I knitted the first part straight just angled out at the side seams, then did short rows on either side of the rectangle to shape it into a curve. From there I did short row wrap and turns to the apex of the hood and then went back and picked them all up creating a beautiful curve to the back of the hood. Finally I decreased again at each side to get the front curve. There was definitely some good Maths going on there.
And Finally it was ready to be sewn together. That took me a good couple of days first sewing the back and front pieces together at the shoulders then setting in the sleeves flat, then I sewed cables down the front side and the sleeve side and then down the other side of the cable down the back of the sleeve and the back of the sweater. Finally I sewed on the front band, sewed the hood to the back neckline and the cable up around the front of the hood. long, tedious, but in the end rewarding as my jumper was completed.
I tried it on...the front has a tendency to sag..oh no I was originally planning on just using a shawl pin or similar to close it up but once I saw it on I knew that I was going to need a zipper up the front. Hopefully that would stabilise the front and also keep it done up.
After a trip to the fabric store for the right length zipper (and some coral knit fabric for my sewing bee entry) I hand sewed the zipper to the front edges. I was so tempted to just sew it in with the sewing machine, but in the end I decided that since I'd spent over a year knitting it I could spend the extra hour to so making sure the the zipper was exactly where it was supposed to be hand stitching it in and I'm glad I did because it turned out beautifully.
When it's done up you can't tell that there is even a zipper there and I was right it does make the front hang better when it's open.
The inside of the zipper doesn't look so great - and one day I might even get around to sewing a facing over the inside of the zip.
But for now it'll just have to live as is as I've spent enough time working on this I want to spend some time enjoying it!
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