My Easter break has been spent slowing down to an almost complete halt. The last few months have been full on, and like so many others, I’ve found not being able to refresh by spend time with family and friends really hard. For the first few days of the holiday we put the brakes on, and basically hibernated. The kids have had lots of screen time, and I’ve hunkered down with my knitting. It was so needed! I’m now feeling much more able to tackle things again. There are seedlings to be planted out in the greenhouse, and I’m going to hang out with my Mum in her garden for a bit tomorrow. All good stuff.
So what have I been knitting?
I have been reunited with my Transom Cardigan WIP* (designed by the marvellous Carol Feller for Field Guide No. 14 Refresh) and it is fabulous! I started eyeing up this cardi as soon as the collection was released last year. Every time I packed an order of Nua I would look at the range and daydream about what colour mine would be. It wasn’t until November, when we ran the Bringing Joy KAL that I actually got as far as casting on.
I got through the shoulders, back and right front, and then the project drifted to the bottom of the WIPs basket whilst I was working on samples for Confident Knitting. A couple of weeks ago it made it back up to the top of the pile, and I was eternally grateful to “November Jen” for tallying the increase rounds on the first front. I was able to pick up exactly where I had left off without any worrying about where I was.
Pro tip: If there’s any chance you’re going to get side-tracked and abandon a WIP, make a note of where you are up to! Advice I frequently forget to act on, but I was THRILLED that on this occasion I had.
Knitting with Nua is just a joy. I often sing the praises of springy yarns, and that’s not what this is… it is a deliciously drapey yarn. The mixture of merino, linen and yak is soft, but not fragile, and I know that the linen will soften further over time, whilst also being hard-wearing. I am loving the fabric that I’m getting and the cables are just ace in this yarn. They don’t pop like they would in a more elastic, round yarn, but they stand out with just the right amount of… well… something! I’m using the August Storms colourway, but there are loads of other gorgeous options to choose from.
The photo up top was taken when I had a day’s photo shoot with Jesse at the start of last week, and I’m happy to say that since then I’ve completed the body, and I’ve made a good start on both sleeves. Both sleeves? Well yes…
Given how things have been I decided that, having completed the first sleeve cap, I should probably immediately work the second sleeve cap. I couldn’t be sure that I would remember what I had done on the first one, if I waited to do the second one after completing the first sleeve. I might abandon the project again for 5 months, and my memory isn’t that great! I figured it would be better to do the second one straight away.
I mean, of course I just followed the pattern, and could do so again… but there are those little things that you learn as you do the first of anything, that you can then apply to the second. In my Transom Cardi, it was about picking up the stitches around the armhole. The instructions tell you how many to pick up, but when I picked up the first side I went at my normal “if-I’m-not-sure” rate, and picked up 2 sts in every 3 rows. This resulted in WAY too many stitches, but rather than pull them out, I figured I would just decrease down to the required number on the next round. Down the second side of the armhole I picked up 1 stitch in every 2 rows and got the perfect number straight off the bat. Whoot!
Don’t follow my lead here…
Decreasing away the extra picked up stitches at the same time as working the short rows across the sleevehead was just plain irritating. I marked up all the decreases with locking markers, but it left me anxious the whole way through that I was going to end up with the wrong number, or a sleevehead that was somehow mis-shapen. In the end it turned out fine, but it’s a bit less than fun to spend a chunk of time knitting on something when you aren’t sure whether it’s all going to work out OK.
I would have saved myself all that anxiety if I had just taken out those picked-up stitches on the first side, and redone them at a slower rate. I probably knew this at the time, but as an experienced knitter I often ignore that inner voice and think, ‘oh it will be fine”. It was fine, but not so fine that it wasn’t worth redoing at the start!
Once I had finished the sleevehead and knew that it had all worked out, it was clear to me that I needed to do the second sleevehead straight away. At this point I’m not even certain that I wouldn’t make the same mistake second time around if I left it even a couple of weeks!! So low is my trust in my ability to listen to my inner voice.
This brings me to pro tip number 2: Listen to your inner voice. If you aren’t sure whether it will be OK, then maybe just redo it? Or do a quick “on the needles block” and check your tension? Just don’t ignore that inner voice. They generally have a sound basis for whatever it is they are muttering about.
And pro tip 3: If there’s a bit of the pattern that needs to be done twice, and your instinct lead you astray the first time, perhaps do the second as quickly as possible? Or you could just leave yourself a MASSIVE note in your project bag…
My second sleevehead is pretty much flying off my needles, which will leave me just the two sleeves followed by the bands to work. It has been such a lovely project, and I’ve been having lots of fun trying it on as I go. It really is a refreshing project. The fit around the top of the sleeves is really good, and I’m sure this is going to be a wardrobe staple as soon as the last end is woven in. Carol Feller’s designs are just really well engineered. She’s so clever!
If you’d like to join me in knitting a Transom Cardigan, do pick up a copy of MDK Field Guide No. 14 Refresh, and you can get 10% off Stolen Stitches Nua with the code LOVENUA when you purchase 5 or more skeins. This code is valid until the end of the day on Sunday 11th April 2021 and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer.
*WIP = Work In Progress