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Saturday, July 07, 2012

Aran Cardigan It's just barely dry, but I couldn't wait to try it on and then put it on the rod for its photos. It fits like a dream and neckline is perfect! I was worried about that. The color is called Happy Peachy Orange, which sounds a little more upbeat than even I would call it. Faded red is more apt. It is Toconao, a kettle dyed merino from Araucania, 139 yds per skein, and I used only 6.5 skeins for a loose size 38, with a size 9US needle, which is pretty amazing for this much pattern stitching. Red is so hard to photograph, but this shot is the most accurate color. There is a lot of varigation in the dye, and it exuded color in the washout. The tag says, raw yarn from Romania, hand dyed in Chile, and sold to me from Seattle, www.Littleknits.com my fave pusher.

I like to make arans, but haven't done many recently. The fun part is choosing the pattern stitches, and figuring out how many sections one needs to fill in the width. With this many different patterns, the gauge for each is so different, and despite swatching,  it is only a guess if it will fit. So, for this cardigan I thought I would try something different. I knit the body circumference from the bottom up, leaving the center front section off until I saw how much of the body would be covered. I measured the bust and determined where the armholes should be and bound straight off for those, then knit the front side edges, both at once, and then I knit the back up to the shoulders.
The shoulders were attached using a three needle bind-off and then I picked up stitches for the front center panels. Those were knit towards the center, so I could make certain that there would be no tugging it closed when I buttoned the front. Next I picked up stitches for the neckline and finally the button band. All that remained were the sleeves, which were also picked up along the squared armhole. I mentioned being worried about the neckline. Here's why. I did no shaping for the curved trinity stitching, which extends all around the neck opening.  I just knit straight, and hoped that it would work, which I am happy to say it does. On the body the ribbing lies flat in front and cups the curve of my neck in back just right. I did the same flat or square shape for the armholes and the underarm had no shaping stitches in the design, yet still lies flat and has no bulky excess in the armpit.
The stitches used were staghorn cable, four stitch cable, seed, trinity, two stitch twisted rib, garter and K1P1 ribbing, Telescope Lattice, and mistake stitch ribbing. Bookmark Melody
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