WIP: Manu

Yes, another Kate Davies design! I absolutely love her designs. If I had the guts I would make the attempt at knitting up her Paper Dolls sweater. But alas, I don't have the balls, nor the patience to even try. I absolutely love the version that one of the ladies at Three Bags Full made, check it out here. My first and last Kate Davies project was the Hooters sweater (well, the designer named it O W L S but I think Hooters suits my version) and the second that I saw this pattern on Ravelry I knew I just had to make it.

I've actually been working on this cardigan for over a month now and have just knitted random rows here and there in between other projects. I've taken it to knit night a few times to try to gain some leeway on the 16.25" of straight-up stockinette for the body. 16.25" doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're knitting a DK weight yarn on 3.75mm needles, it feels like eternity! I swear I was pushing the laws of the time-space continuum - no matter how much time I had put into knitting this, no matter how many rows went by, I would hold the fabric up and realize that I had basically gotten nowhere! My knitting looked the same as when I had started! Such boring knitting really didn't make for interesting blogging fodder and so I never made a mention of this project. Until now.

I finally finished the body up to the armpits over the weekend and am now working on one of the sleeves. I normally like to knit both sleeves at once, that way I know that they will end up the same length, but these sleeves are knit in the round so I'm stuck knitting them up one at a time. I haven't decided yet if I want to make the sleeves full or 3/4 length. I'm also still up in the air about how I feel about the width of the sleeve and if I like them or not. I feel like I'm knitting them too wide and am not sure if the bagginess would look good on a 3/4 length sleeve. I guess when I reach that 3/4 mark I can make my final decision then.

For now, this project is coming along quite slowly and a wee bit boring due to all that stockinette - hence why the photo above is lacking in the interesting department. The photo also doesn't show the color accurately at all. My camera just can't seem to pick up the proper richness of the blue green and instead makes it look completely washed out. The photo below is a bit more accurate:

I'm not in a major rush to finish this project, since the weather is warming up even more and there really is no need for an alpaca/merino wool blend cardigan during the summer. I'll most likely be working on this randomly here and there to break up the monotony from other knitting projects, and whenever the weather is cool enough for me to handle the alpaca. If anything I think I'll be bringing this with me to knit in the car when I head over to the Kootenays and Okanagan this summer, where I think I'll be knitting up the majority of this cardie. The simple stockinette is perfect car knitting!

'Til next time, Happy Knitting!!