(It’s my favorite Dylan song ever. How could I resist such a title?)
Pattern: Eunny Jang’s Tangled Yoke Cardigan from the Fall 2007 Interweave Knits
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, color “Carbon” (which is so blue, hush you), a smidge over 7 balls for the 38″ size
Time elapsed: I thought about 2 months, but I just looked at the archives and it was barely a month and a half.
Modifications/Notes: I did my usual body-lengthening modification–I’m quite long-waisted and cropped sweaters do nothing good for me. I also added one set of waist decreases, to bring the waist measurement somewhat closer to my actual waist. For reference, the 38″ size with this modification gave me about 1″ of negative ease in the bust and about 1.5″ of positive ease in the waist, freshly-washed. (Warning to others: The felted tweed grows when it gets wet the first time, and also grows with wear. It will shrink back to its freshly-blocked size with subsequent washings.)
Unintentionally, I omitted a button and wound up with 8 instead of 9. No way was I ripping this out when I figured it out post-blocking. Finally, I lined both the button band and the buttonhole band with grosgrain ribbon, for stability.
I purchased the buttons from a fantastic vendor named “Moving Mud” at Rhinebeck, and I love them with the heat of a thousand suns. They’re my second-favorite purchase from that weekend, after the Mermaid kit. Anyway, back to the pattern. I love all of the little details about it, though they add up to make it a reasonably complicated sweater. The neckline is hemmed, the button bands are in that same garter rib from the body, the cable rows are really, really long. The cable mirrors itself gracefully halfway through the back, to make the fronts look nicer.
Seriously, admire the genius that designed those cables for a few more moments.
Like others, I found the yardage requirements to be somewhat generous. Even with my lengthening, I used juuuuust over 7 of the 8 balls called for, and I swatched extensively for this project. I’m sure I could have knit it as written with just 7.
All in all, this is a sweater that I’m going to be happy to wear for a very, very long time. Four thumbs up!
(The usual FO photo-shoot madness can be found here.)
Amy Herzog Designs