a sparkly cardi for the store



Tide cropped cardigan from Louisa Harding's Beachcomber Bay 2 in her new glisten ribbon yarn

---

photography by S, bored look by B

The glisten cardi is done, done, done! It's in the store right now. I had to try it on before I brought it in though, because, yes, I really like it. The style is super cute, even cuter on! So I'm not a fan of the heavy, sparkly, ribbony yarn, but I am seriously considering making this top for myself in some Rowan Summer Tweed I've got in my stash. I'm thinking that if I like it this much in this yarn I can't stand and in the totally wrong size (there's like four extra inches in the chest!), I'll absolutely love it when I make it for myself.

The glisten cardi is so close to being finished and brought to the store, that I've already started shopping the store to see what yarn I'd like to buy for compensation!

I finished the second front, sewed it together with the body and, yesterday at Knitsmiths, I started setting in the sleeves.

Of course, in all my browsing the store for new yarn, I forgot to look for a button to close the cardi. Doh!

No, I haven't finished the second front of the glisten cardi yet, but I decided to give my hands a rest (jumping back and forth between two projects on the same needle isn't really much variation) and see if I couldn't get started on the seaming.

don't you just love mattress stitch?

With this ribbon yarn and it's snags and twists, I was worried that the seaming would be a bear, but not so far. It's actually coming together rather quickly and rather easily. Phew. Can I change my tune on this yarn?

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you, yarn, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to waste it....
You're gonna make it after all!

I'm down to the fronts in my battle to get this glisten cardi finished and as far away from me as possible.

I have to admit that now that I'm working on smaller pieces and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, the yarn isn't bothering me quite as much. The boys love watching me unspin it. That's cool, I guess.

Once I finished the back of the alchemy sweater, I could get back to the glisten cardigan. In a moment of extreme laziness, I decided just to pull the addis that I was using for the glisten cardi out of the bag and use them to start the syncrhonicity top. I can't switch needles now without affecting my gauge, so I'm stuck trading off - one piece of the alchemy sweater, one piece of the glisten cardi. It is quite a motivation to get through the glisten project, I can tell you.

I certainly finished the back wicked fast. But this was probably owing less to the needle issue than to the fact that I really can't stand this yarn anymore. It still feels lovely in the ball and is pretty and sparkly, but it is way annoying to knit with and I've got some serious problems with how it's used in this pattern. First, the yarn is still catching constanly on the needles. And this isn't just frustrating, but also seems to be causing it to fray slightly where the little sparkles are. This looks particularly bad along the cast-on edge (you can even kinda see it along all the edges in the pattern pictures - look close and remember, this yarn ain't fuzzy!). Second, although I'm doing my best to untwist the yarn as I knit, there must have been more twisting in the section where I was doing the armhole shaping, because it clearly has a different look to it. Blech. Then there's my issues with the pattern. Why, please tell me why, is this ribbon yarn knit at a gauge that makes a short-sleeved, cropped little cardi weigh a ton and use up 9 (yes, NINE) balls of yarn?! If this were knit on US10's instead of US8's, I think it would be much lighter, more drapey, and feel significantly less like chain mail.

And look at all those ends I have to weave in! So, riddle me this, why does every ball start with a separate piece of yarn that's only about 2 yards long???? This is not an isolated thing. I have found it in every ball. I knitted the first two of them in: the first, because I had no idea; and the second, because I thought that must have been some sort of a one-time manufacturing mess-up. Now I look closely when I start a new ball and it's fairly easy to see that there are really two ends at the top. I pull them both and one leads to the ball, the other just pulls off a 2 yard strip of yarn. Is this some sort of ribbon yarn convention that I don't know about? Tell me there is a reason for this besides vexing me and forcing me to weave in a thousand ends.

All I can say is thank goodness I get to switch back to the synchronicity top for a while! Back to the happy yarn place.

UPDATE: Check my comments in the comments section for some more thoughts from me on this yarn and pattern....

Do excuse the pun - it's still all teeth talk around here and I just couldn't help myself.

My hand was doing great while I was in NYC - no soreness, no twinges - then I knit a bit of that sock on the bus, got home and used my computer, and it hurts even more now. Yikes! Back to the continental projects for me. And so I don't get bored (I am so not a one-project gal!), I offered to knit a sample sweater for the store. We've got new spring yarns in - it's kind of exciting to knit ahead to the next season - and I'll be making this little cropped cardigan from Louisa Harding's new Beachcomber Bay book in her new sparkly ribbon yarn called glisten.

look, I swatched!

It's my first time doing a stitch pattern beyond stockinette stitch or ribbing with my left hand. After working on the baby sweater in cotton, I feel like my gauge is fairly reliable when knitting continental. Now it's time to get used to working in pattern. Maybe someday, I can switch over entirely to knitting continental. Who knows, maybe I'll have to.

feather and fan - always a favorite

This ribbon yarn feels pretty nice. It's not scratchy like some ribbons can be. It's actually a silver thread core inside a ribbon. Every few centimeters there's an opening in the ribbon so the core thread is visible, making the little sparkles. Those little notches where the silver shows through are constantly catching on the needle though. Ugh. And the whole yarn twists and twists while I'm knitting with it which is totally crazy-making. I've got a rubber band wrapped around the ball, so I can let the ball hang from the needle and untwist every couple of rows. So overall, it's slow going what with knitting the pattern in continental, the notches catching on my needle, and the yarn needing to be untwisted all the time, but somehow I managed to make it through sleeve number one without breaking a sweat.

isn't she pretty?