Another Old One

I’ve made myself exactly two things on my knitting machine.  One was for school.  This one I made before I got pregnant with souricette 2.  Yeah, I’m kind of slow with the sharing thing, huh?

Before leaving Montreal, I ordered some yarn from an italian mill, Raumer Spa (they used to have a website but I can’t find it anymore).  One of my teachers ordered from them on a regular basis back then and I just added a couple cones of yarn to her order.  One of those yarns was that brown one from the Signature Style sweater jacket.  This is the other one.  I have to say, this one is luxurious but also both a beast to knit and wear.  It’s 70% viscose, 20% nylon, and 10% angora.  It’s part bunny!  It’s soft, drapes well, and has a beautiful sheen.  It also unravels way way down when you drop a stitch.  And it sheds and pills like woah.  It’s like the bunny is trying to escape or something…  It’s very very thin.  Honestly, a bit too thin for my machine.  Maybe that’s why it pills so much.  I’ll have to try to wind some off and knit it doubled.  I did double it up in one part of the sweater but not in a hard wearing area so I can’t tell.

So.  The cardigan.  This is actually the first lace item I made on my knitting machine.  I may have said so before, but lace knitting is finicky.  The needles actually have to move out of their special little groove.  Atrocious noise ensues, making me feel like I’m completely destroying my machine.

I’ve given up on doing any sort of lace shaping.  Every time I try, everything falls apart…  Instead, I designed this thing to be made of lace rectangles.  The top is two rectangles  of wavy lace (my design).  The two pieces are joined halfway along one edge to create the center back seam.  And thenI seamed each side into a tube, leaving just enough open to go almost all the way around my ribcage.

For the bottom, since I was doing plain old stockinette, I added a bit of shaping to the sides so it would swing out just a little bit.  I had created this really cute swirl lace pattern so I made one long rectangle band to add to the bottom.

The last bit was two long double rib rectangle bands, seamed at center back and going all the way down the front.  They’re that extra bit of fabric that allows me to close the cardigan (with a hat pin! I need to get myself a pretty metal shawl pin).  I had to knit this part with the yarn doubled.  It looked just awful otherwise.

I actually really like this cardigan.  I wore it all of once before finally taking these pictures.  It was under a coat and the friction made it look like a mess, all matted together at the sides.  But I wore it all day when I took these pictures and it was fine.  It shed all over my tee but it didn’t pill.  Guess it just wants to be shown to the world?

About deuxsouriceaux

Creative mommy at home to two wonderful little girls, trying to juggle family, sewing, exercise, family, knitting, photography, and did I mention family?