I’ve finished the jacket, yay! As I wrote in the last post I was not very happy with the jacket as the sleeves were a bit tight. Now that I’ve added the buttons and I’ve worn it around for a couple of days I actually really really like it!
The fabric has eased out a tiny bit which makes the sleeve situation better and overall I’m very happy with how it came together, amidst all the problems that I encountered while sewing it, haha.
I wrote about all the pattern and modification details in the last post if you’re interested in knowing more about it (although I did go and change everything up on the go so I wasn’t actually following a particular pattern).
Another thing I finished yesterday is this merino cardigan! Similarly to the jacket, I finished it and I wasn’t very happy with the result in the first place but then started to like it a lot. Last year I was knitting a lot...like a lot. I knitted seven sweaters!!! This year...it has been so slow. I guess I’ve had a lot more work and less sofa time...I don’t know really. The thing is that this cardigan is the second knitting project I’m finishing this year (ouch). It took a lot of time and honestly...it was quite boring, haha.
Basically I wanted to knit an uncomplicated garment as I wanted to use (read: get rid of) this merino wool I had in my stash for a long time. I bought it at the beginning of my knitting journey, back when I wasn’t aware that merino yarns and me...we just don’t get along at all! The thing is that apparently I knit rather loosely and when merino meets water (in the form of wet blocking a garment) it expands...it expands sooo much when your stitches are not super tight.
Anyway, I learned this lesson the hard way when I finished my first ever sweater, I actually had to unravel the whole thing because after blocking it, it was super big (even when I took care to not pull it in any direction while it was wet). I did knit a couple of other sweaters in merino later on (all my knitting projects are at my Ravelry page) and had a little bit better luck but I definitely understood that this specific wool was not my cup of tea. By then I had managed to build a stash of yarn, with different merino yarns of course...for those future projects I had in my big list of knitting plans.
Fast forward... there was this off white merino, the last merino in my stash! So even when I don’t use merino for sweaters anymore...I still wanted to use this one to at least get rid of it (and well, to have a sweater!). I think that was the main reason I wasn’t enjoying this knitting process, I knew I was doing it just to use up the yarn...not because I was particularly excited about it.
Anyway...it took forever but I finished the thing, I used the Novice cardigan pattern. Before blocking it was more or less OK...the sleeves were a bit wide but I was going to live with it. I tried to carefully block the cardigan but as soon as it touched the water...I saw how it expanded!!! I tried to smoothen it out while leaving it drying horizontally but I saw that this was not going to end well. Once again it was Merino 1, me 0. Once it finally dried up I saw that both the body and the sleeves had “grown” for at least 10 cm. It was horrible!
By that point I wanted to just throw it away, haha. But first I wanted to make sure if I could try and shrink it...you see, I had totally lost all hope and I was ready to try anything, haha! Wool normally felts with hot water but this yarn is a superwash, meaning that you can wash it in the washing machine (it says 40 degrees). I first just added almost boiling water to it and it didn’t work. I then washed the cardigan in the washing machine at 90 degrees (I know, how cruel!!!) and when it came out it was considerably shorter in body length but the sleeves were still too long. I then unraveled the sleeves to a correct length and knitted the cuffs again.
And finally I smoothened the cardigan out with steam iron...something that my grandma used to do to block her knitting projects and something I thought I would never do. Well, here we are, washing wool at 90 degrees and pressing it with hot iron...and actually managing to get a decent result (never say never, right?). It actually looks really nice, I’m really happy with the shape and all!!! After everything, haha.
I’m now definitely ready for a project that wouldn’t test my patience so much!