Ribby Cardigan Finished!!!

I finally finished my Ribby Cardigan!!!! Yeah. I was so excited to have something finished that I could actually wear. I had made a sweater before from the Yarn Girl’s Guide to Simple Knits but I seamed it so badly that it was lumpy. I have yet to frog it to make something else…

I knit my Ribby using a pattern available from Chicknits.com. It was a really simple well written pattern and I enjoyed knitting it. I ordered 10 skeins of Peruvian Highland Wool from Elann.com and still have a ball and a half left. I haven’t put the zipper in yet. A friend of mine is going to help me do that this weekend.

The one thing I hated was seaming this sweater. My last seaming experience was horrible so of course, I procrastinated with this sweater. I actually finished knitting this sweater in about a month and a half but just got around to seaming it this week. I decided to do something different. I looked up the different finishing techniques in Stitch N Bitch and decided to follow those. And boy did that work. It looked beautiful after I was done.

The only think I would have done differently was make it a tad longer. It hits the top of my hip and maybe an inch longer would look better. But it’s already knit up and I didn’t want to redo it. I could live with this. I am going to make another except longer of course. Maybe I’ll make it up in two tones of purple or Burgundy.

This goal is done. I am still plugging away at Angelina and the purple Baby Einstein. I cast on for the Hourglass sweater. I was going to use Knit Pick’s Shine in Apricot but I decided to save it for the Tivoli Shirt. I’m making the Hourglass sweater in Cottonease instead. I am having a hard time getting gauge. The sweater maybe a bit big but I didn’t want to use the Shine because I only ordered 8 skeins to make the small. What I didn’t realize is that Shine is not a very elastic yarn and I didn’t want to rip my sweater to get it over my head. My gauge is close on the Cottonease though. I’m averaging 17 st/in. And I want to get to 18. Just under the gauge specified in the pattern. That should get me a sweater that has a bust measurement in the 35″ range instead of 33″. My bust measures 34″ so I’m at that weird inbetween size. I probably did have enough to make it out of Shine but I didn’t want to take the chance of knitting it all up and not having enough yarn to make the collar!

Here are some pics of the Ribby Cardi. My dog Waldo particularly liked this sweater. Wherever I set it down he would sniff or even lie down on it like it was his blanket! I wonder if wool is like catnips for dogs….