Friendly Cardigan & Origami Sweater

I have started a sweater for a good friend who has been bugging me for two months. Every time I walk into his house, he asks, "Where is my cardigan?". I had knit Christmas gifts for him, his wife, and daughter plus my two other guy friends and their kids. Those gifts were pretty successful so I thought, what the heck, I'll knit a cardigan. This friend seemed to me to need a classic cardigan, I thought, My Three Sons, Father Knows Best. The next step was to scourer the extensive magazine collection I have. I finally found the pattern in an old Family Circle Easy Knitting magazine (Fall 1996). It is a shawl collar cardigan by Dawn Brocco. Originally shown as a plaid check in Donegal Tweed, I chose to knit it in Lion Brand Woolease in the Autumn colorway. Okay, so let's review. A 12 year old magazine and a yarn who's colorway has been discontinued. I bought the yarn at least 5 years ago. And weirdly, I had 10 skeins and was looking on the wire shelving in my apartment and came across an 11th skein. The pattern is wonderful because it is knit from the bottom up all in one piece. The sleeves are picked up at the armholes and knit down to the cuffs. In other words, I DON'T HAVE TO SEAM ANYTHING!!! YEAH!!!!

In other news, I have finally started the Origami Sweater. I am referring to an article by Diane Piwko, editor of InKnitters magazine, from the Spring 2005 issue. This magazine is no longer being published. Last year, when my local knitting guild was looking into starting a KAL, I emailed Diane Piwko about the article because I found it an interesting concept and thought it would be a great stash-buster. She very kindly emailed back and gave me permission to photocopy 25 copies of the article so our guild members could knit this sweater. Basically, it is two parallelograms and clever folding to get a cool sweater. I started the 6 month old size for my cousin's new baby. I am using Moda Dea Sassy Stripes in the Stormy colorway. This yarn is 100% acrylic and I figured it would be good for being washed and dried by machine. The guild will have a meeting to update our progress on this pattern and bring our sweaters to admire in either March or April depending on our schedule. Hopefully, our members will allow some photos of the sweaters to be taken so we can share them on the guild website.

Quick Cardigan

I wanted to start on a quick cardigan using some of my stash yarn.   I had started a side to side cardigan a few years ago with Lion Brand Al-pa-ka (discontinued) in Black and Oxford Tweed (grey/black twist).    I am frogging it and using a strand of each color to make a raglan cardigan.  The pattern I am knitting is from the Lion Brand website.  I am using size US 10 needles because I tend to knit quite loosely.   I have knitted this pattern in the past in Lion Brand Woolease Chunky and it turned into a cozy sweater.