Sweet is now Wicked

One of my Ravelry projects is called 'Caramel Sweet Cardigan'. Or rather it was. I was supposed to be using some of my handspun yarn to make a Rowan cardigan called 'Sweet', which I picked out a few years ago from Rowan Mag no. 26. I made test samples of the yarn, blended the fibres on my drum carder (caramel coloured CVM wool, angora rabbit fibre and tussah silk), carefully spun and plied the yarn. All of which took me many weeks to do, spaced over a couple of years. I finished the last of the spinning a few weeks back (shortly after I found the Lime and Violet podcasts, which have given me something highly entertaining to listen to while I spin - hence much more spinning is getting done). The yarn's turned out beautifully, it's soft and touchable, in this gorgeous light caramel colour. And then I sat down, knit a gauge swatch and disaster! My gauge was off. Not just by a little bit, but by five stitches over 10cm. Five! It was supposed to be a dk yarn knitting to 23 stitches/10cm, instead I'd spun an aran weight that knit to 18 stitches. No idea how, I'd been checking my yarn size over and over while I spun it. I think the yarn pixies must have come along and switched it. Either that, or my measuring was wrong. Nah, it must have been the pixies...

Anyway, it is a beautiful yarn, so I set about finding a different knitting pattern for it. And this is what I've come up with: Wicked, a sweater pattern sold by Zephyr Style. It seems very popular on Ravelry, and I'd been looking for a cosy casual sweater with a pocket on the front. It's knit from the top down, which I haven't tried before, so it should be interesting. So, I bought the pattern and cast on yesterday. The cabley bits at the neckline were a bit fiddly (I blame my left handedness for that). But the neckline was done pretty quickly and I'm now onto the increases for the sleeves. It's a great pattern so far, really easy to read. And the best bit? That yarn is some of the loveliest stuff I've ever knit with, well worth the effort of spinning it.

Here's my progress so far:




And here's a close-up of the knitted yarn, complete with one of the beaded stitch markers I made a couple of weeks ago (admire the angora-silky yumminess of it, wish I would upload a swatch here so you could feel it):