we all live in a yellow cardigan



Nevis from A Season's Tale in Peace Fleece (color: Chickie Masala)

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I made up with chickie and she's all finished! Thanks to some late night finishing sessions, I managed to wrap up chickie just in time to start my spring fling knitting as scheduled. Even though this cardigan is wool (peace fleece, baby!), the bright yellow color makes it perfect for spring. For spring in Boston, that is (more snow predicted for this week!). But I really love the color and the wool. There will be a lot more peace fleece in my future. Peace Fleece - it's the new all seasons cotton.

So cardigan details. I coverted the Nevis pattern from A Season's Tale from a chunky gauge to suit my worsted weight wool. Not too difficult, except for maybe getting the raglan decreases to work. That button band was a b**ch though, mostly because I wasn't sure how much to "stretch" the garter stitch while sewing-as-I-was-going. I would sew the band up only to see that it ruffled a bit on the outer edge, then would have to rip it out and reattach it. After three or four attempts I finally found the right ratio. The shawl collar works amazingly well for how simple it is to actually knit. Increase at the right spots and it just rolls right over perfectly, stopping just above that top button.

Oh yeah, I went for the leaf buttons. Thanks for your help on that one, everybody!

I spent forever knitting and sewing-as-I-go and ripping to tweak the sewing, then ripping and reknitting and resewing and ripping and retweaking the sewing and... and... and... ugh... after hours of working on the button band for chickie in an attempt to get her all finished up by the weekend, this is as far as I got.

One half of the button band. I had no idea that it would be such a pain. And that top part is actually quite a bit of knitting. But all that hard work was worth it, I hope. This side looks acceptable and I think I know what I'm doing now.

So where's the good chickie? Check out Kim's just finished and very yellow no sweat pants. I want some in yellow now too!

Chickie's almost done! I've just got the crazy garter stitch 'sew as you go' (their instructions) button bands/shawl collar. Never done a button band like that - should be interesting. Speaking of buttons, the boys and I made it out to the Button Box in Needham, MA (and the neighboring playground and ice cream shop!). I found some toggle buttons I liked. Then later at my LYS, I was drawn to some pretty orange leaf buttons (I almost used these on the boys' giraffe jackets!). And then I found some neat flower buttons in my own stash. So which do you like best??

I think I like the last best, but I've only got two of them. Darn.

And look what the boys got to take home from The Button Box. Loose buttons for 50 cents a scoop! Fun!

I've sewn up the chickie front and back panels. Looks like it'll be just the right width for me. Maybe my math skills are improving! I did find a minor problem though - apparently I knit one front panel about a 1/2 inch too short. Rather than ripping out the whole armhole shaping and reknitting (I AM getting sick of the stockinette!), I fudged the seam and made it fit. It's not noticeable at all, but I'll have to do some similar fudging on the button bands, so that the size difference doesn't show up again there. And my final problem is that I'm having a heck of a time deciding on buttons for this cardigan. I'm thinking I may want some toggle buttons, but haven't really seen any I like. I've still got the sleeves to finish, so I've got at least another week to flake out on the buttons.

And blue is also back together. Fits okey-dokey.

That means I can proceed with the last sleeve (like my covering the bra strap pose?). Looks like I'm going straight from seaming overload to sleeve hell. Funny, for someone who declared a February finishing frenzy, I didn't really finish much! But I did do a ton of seaming though - banff, mya, chickie, blue, the sweatpants - and I sure am liking this new 'sew as you go' policy of mine. So look for some finished projects coming soon!

I finished the front panels of my chickie cardigan.

Still loving the Peace Fleece and still loving the shape of this cardigan. I'm not feeling 100% sure about my calculations to adjust the gauge though, so the rule for this project is going to be 'sew as you go'. Before I really get into the sleeves, I want to sew up the sides and slip the body on to check that the fit is right. Then I can use the same conversion ratio to figure out the numbers for the sleeve and sleeve cap. Measure twice, knit once, right?

Hey, speaking of Peace Fleece (we were, weren't we?), did you see Melissa's finished Banff - in Peace Fleece? Beautiful! And an excellent yarn choice for the sweater. But then again, what wouldn't look good in Peace Fleece??

Here's hoping I do.

Finished the back of chickie...

(I was off balance when taking the photo and had to tip the picture a bit in Photoshop to kill the perspective distortion. Sorry if you're getting a kind of 'visiting the Guggenheim' feeling!)

I'm really excited about this one, hoping it'll be a cardigan that looks good on me. Am I the only one who's cardigan-conflicted?? I'm having second thoughts about the must have cardigan because it's really way too boxy for me. I'd already started fiddling with the cables that I didn't like and then I just knew that I'd want to add some sort of waist shaping. And now I'm thinking that even with those changes, the pattern could still be unflattering. But not my sweet yellow chickadee, which already has waist shaping and curve-enhancing shawl collar. So I must rethink the must have and will be sticking with this cardigan for now. Sorry, must-have-ers!

Yebie is how my boys say yellow. Well, first B identifies everything yellow as orange so that I will say "noooo, that's not orange." Then he grins and says "yebie" like he was just holding out on me the whole time.

Chickie is knitting up wonderfully. I'm in the middle of the waist shaping on the back. This Peace Fleece yarn is a genuine pleasure to work with. It feels great in my hands and is really beautiful.

And it's yebie.

What'cha gonna do when your momma won't wear hats? I made my mom a hat and mitten set last Christmas that she's never taken out of the box. But, ma, it's soooo cold! She said she might wear something larger and looser, so I started on a big hat with the Rowanspun Chunky I got out of the stash box. Will she like it? Stay tuned next week...

And what'cha gonna do when your new yarn just keeps calling to you? The chickie masala peace fleece simply won't wait. So I swatched it up and searched through all my patterns to find something to knit now. And we're off!