Pam Alison Knits

The pink cardi is so close to being finished but, like Cinderella, it needs its buttons! For once, I have nothing suitable in my button box, so the cardi won’t be truly complete until I’ve taken a trip to town and bought something suitable. I could have done that today, but I craved an at-home day and, anyway, Sundays are not always the best for shopping. The bus service isn’t as regular as weekdays and Saturdays, and a number of the more interesting, smaller shops don’t open at all on Sunday.

Even without buttons, I can give a pretty good summing-up of the finished garment: it is a reasonably good fit and eminently wearable – you may recall this wasn’t something I took for granted as I was knitting it. I really like how it fits on the shoulders and around the neckline, the sleeves are not too tight (modern patterns often have very slender sleeves). I may have preferred the longer length for the body of the cardigan, but this shorter body will probably work well with dresses. Once the cardigan has been washed and the buttons added, there will be a grand experiment to find out how it works with my clothes.

I was quite surprised by how little yarn I used to complete this project. I bought five skeins of the plain yarn plus one skein of the splodgy one, and I have been left with two full skeins plus a bit of the plain and half of the splodgy one. This actually makes it quite an economical knit. The West Yorkshire Spinners’ Croft DK wool was very nice to work with and I like the finished fabic pre-washing. A gentle wash shouldn’t change things too much, though I don’t think I’d feel too confident about putting this one through a machine wash, even on a gentle cycle.

I’m pleased with myself for getting the project seamed-up and almost good to go, because I cast on for my new project before finishing this one! It’s a thing I rarely do, because it’s easy to lose enthusiasm for your old passion when you’ve got your eye on a new one. For this new garment, the one I’m calling “Big Blue Slouch” each piece starts with an interesting decorative border (you can’t really call it a rib) before descending into a vast acreage of stocking stitch. When I started, I thought the border might be a little challenging, but it’s actually fairly easy to “read” what you’ve already knitted and keep on track with where you are. It’s a pretty logical series of stitch repeats.

The John Arbon Knit by Numbers wool is pleasant to knit up and it will be interesting to see if this garment uses most of the recommended amount of yarn. I’ve started with one of the front panels since the cable on my circular needles is the perfect length for it and this will allow me plenty of time to buy a longer cable more suited to the enormous number of stitches there will be on the back panel. The finished dimensions of this piece are meant to be an astounding 70″ around the bust and that is the smallest size. Plenty of room for cake expansion!

One thing I can say with confidence is that this will not be a Cinderella project as I already have the perfect buttons. These were a gift from my great friends some years ago and they have been sitting patiently waiting for their prince. Wait no more, buttons, your prince is on his way. Well, there will be a bit of a wait, but they’re out of the button box now so they can keep an eye on the progress.

It is early days yet to know whether the circular needle is going to be better for my hands, but what I can say so far is that I feel more comfortable than I expected to working with it. This project is going to test the limits of both needle and hands, although the Herriot Poncho, should I ever get around to making it, will dwarf my poor little Slouch. I think it might be the last thing I attempt in my proposed project to make everything from this pattern book.

I’m well aware, on the knitting front, that I also have a pair of socks which need to be finished. I might end up working on the Slouch at the weekends and picking up the socks for some relaxing knitting on weekday nights. I’m keen to finish them because I had a little gloat over some of my lovely sock yarns as I got the blue wool out of my knitting cabinet, and I don’t want them to feel too neglected.