Finished: Tahitian Tea Leaves

Finally!! A completed cardigan! After seeing so many cardigan WIPs I'm sure you guys have been wondering when you'll ever see a cardigan FO! Well here's one, #10 for my 12 in 2011 goal. This pattern was in my queue for what feels like forever and the yarn (which is Knit Picks City Tweed DK), I had bought in a sweater quantity's worth without knowing what I was going to use it for.

This project knits up pretty darn fast. According to the dates and notes that I took on Ravelry, and even with the issues that I had with the cuffs and sleeve length, this still had only taken me 2 weeks to knit. I think that even if I had started this from the very beginning I would still have taken 2 weeks to knit. The pattern is very straightforward and beyond easy, I mean, it's nothing but stockinette and there's absolutely no seaming involved! Plus, DK weight yarn was used. Not the fingering weight that I seem to favour and always am knitting with. All this equals to a quick knit. The only "tough" part was the yoke, which is nothing more than garter and a series of increases and decreases.

The sleeves are super easy, the only reason why I had such an issue with them is because I was dying to get this done (and I did a beginner's mistake) and had just kept knitting with the 4.5mm needle that I had used for the sleeve and didn't switch to the smaller needle when I got to the cuff. The pattern didn't say to change needles (not sure if it was assumed that the knitter would know to do such a thing?), but it did say so when you get to the hem of the body...which you do before the sleeves. Anyhoo, so I kept the sleeve as is so that I could compare when I finished the second sleeve. Well, I took this to a knit night one night and sure enough, the consensus was that the garter knit with the smaller needle looked much better. I had also didn't like how the sleeve flared and billowed and looked overall chunky with the larger size. So after I bound off the second sleeve I went back and ripped out the first sleeve's bind off and cuff. So much work just to realize that the length of the sleeves are now too short for my liking. With this project I wanted a longer sleeve to suit the coziness of the overall look of the cardigan. Oh, and did I mention that I tend to forget that I have "meaty" arms and that the length would shrink a bit to make up for the fabric having to stretch around my mammoth arms. So again, I frogged back both sleeves back to the start of the cuff, knitted another inch (to the length that the pattern had originally said to do!) and then re-knit the cuffs in the smaller needle size. Yeesh! Luckily it didn't take me that long to do all this! But it was a pain in the ass, especially when I had to keep Russian joining the yarn to the working yarn.

Please excuse this next photo. Brett thought it would be cute to take. I thought it would be a good idea to show you what the back looked like (cause we never get to see the back of stuff).

The only modifications that I did was to change where the buttonholes were placed. I wanted them to be at matching ruched spots and so knitted 10 stitches instead of 20. And as per usual, I went with wooden buttons to finish off!

This cardigan is super warm and I was starting to sweat while trying to take these photos. It really didn't help that Brett has his own agenda as to what the photos should look like and so artistic arguments ensued. What is it with men wanting to take such unflattering photos? And not noticing if your hair is in the way when you're trying to get a close up shot of the shoulders, or any other small detail like that? Oi, I think it's time for me to get a remote for my camera. Might save me the time (and from sweating from having to wear alpaca on one of the hottest days this summer!) and artistic differences next time!

Cardigan Details:

Pattern: Tea Leaves Cardigan by Melissa LaBarre for Madelinetosh

Yarn: Knit Picks City Tweed DK, I used almost 8 balls

Colour: Tahitian

Needles: Knit Picks Harmony Wood Interchangeable in 4mm (US 6) and 4.5mm (US 7)

Ravelry Link: MisoCraftyKnits' Tahitian Tea Leaves