Sunday, January 20, 2008

Joni Mitchell Cardigan- FO (and surgery pics!)

My feelings about this cardigan have been quite roller coaster-esque. First, I loved it. Despite being knit on US 5 needles, it is a very fast knit. Until it came time for the decreases in the lace section. Oy! I don't know that I will ever knit a lace cardigan again. It is a miracle that this one fit together fine and didn't come out all wonky (haha, spell check on Blogger doesn't like it when I type "wonky." WONKY WONKY WONKY. oh, hrm, apparently WONKY is okay but wonky is not. wonky wonky wonky! The word has now lost all meaning. Moving on.). Then I started to like the cardigan again as I finished all of the pieces, and then I decided I didn't like it anymore because I didn't want to seam it. Reverse stockinette and lace? Ick. Enter Frek. Frek likes to seam things. Frek also likes marmite. And nori with mustard on top. We don't question the things Frek likes. So off the cardigan pieces went, all the way to St. Louis, to be seamed. And shortly thereafter I received a pieced together cardigan. One button band (I don't detest button bands the way that some people do. However, I try to knit them on along with the sweater fronts whenever possible) and a good blocking later and it looked... just okay. Not fabulous, but just okay. Enter the iron. Yes, I ironed the cardigan. This would have sounded scary to me, but a while back I read this post and decided to try it today. I loved the results so much that I grabbed another sweater (to be revealed in this post as well) that I had recently surgerized and ironed the "new" parts!

Behold, the Joni Mitchell Cardigan (sounds less silly than "Dollar and a Half Cardigan ):





Knit with less than 11 balls of Reynolds Soft Linen and US 5 needles (I knit the 36 1/4" bust). Now I just need buttons!

Here are the promised surgery pictures (well, these are all post-op, not surgery action shots).

Grumperina's Pentagon Pullover, sleeves and body lengthened, 2x2 ribbed cuffs replaced with a very slightly flared stst cuff and a single purl row. (This is the other ironed knit)



Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (aka Lace Leaf Pullover) with a rollneck:



Simply Marilyn, sans bib-neck, neck redone and unexpectedly shorter (knit to what I thought was the same length as the original. Oh well):


Foliage and Rogue look pretty much the same post-op, so I didn't take pictures. I still think I can eek out one more sweater before the end of my 12 months (for a grand total of 14 sweaters in 12 months, holy crap).

4 comments:

bek said...

Kabs, you are the woman! I bow -- once again -- to your knitting prowess. And now to your surgerizing prowess as well...I especially love the new sleeves on the Grumperina sweater. Maybe I'll take you to the OR with me next year :)

I do believe that "We don't question the things Frek likes" will be the new description of my blog. I love it!

Anonymous said...

The Pentagon Pullover mods are awesome!!! The sweater looks wonderful on you :). I'm so glad I had a bit of extra yarn so you could do that.

Adrienne said...

OMG! I LOVE that pentagon pullover!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I love your Joni Mitchell Cardigan,
especially the length of sleeves ( Most of my cardigans and sweaters have the extra long sleeves which I usually pull down over my hands. Do you like the extra long sleeves on your sweaters and cardigans? Do you plan to knit other sweaters with it?please write me. Pauline from Europe ( jna@atlas.cz )