My New Favorite Cardigan

I finished my Vivian cardigan on Wednesday morning, just a few hours before my husband, my brother-in-law, and I set out for a Thanksgiving holiday with their family in Indiana. I very happily wore it on Thanksgiving day, and got many nice compliments from the family. The other benefit of finishing when I did was being able to take pictures with the lovely southern Indiana backdrop:


Not to say that it wasn't a close race to the deadline. I kept wondering if I would finish knitting in time, if the blocked sweater would dry quickly enough, and if I would finally manage to get the darned zipper to attach to my cardigan. Let me just say that there was a lot of swearing at my old sewing machine on Tuesday night before I finally gave up and stitched the rest of the zipper in by hand on Wednesday morning. I think that having a secure zipper, with its pretty ribbon detailing, was totally worth frightening my husband a little. Sorry Dear.


I should also mention the modifications I made to the pattern, which mainly consisted of changing the hood to a stand-up collar. Thankfully, I had a little help from the notes of a fellow Ravelry user, Olga. Here is what I changed:

- I added 4 short rows in the last row before starting the right saddle shoulder.
- I skipped the BO and pick-up of stitches in the last 3 rows before the hood.
- Instead of starting the hood, I bound off all stitches (save the 3 i-cord st at each side of the front) to add stability to the collar.
- On the WS, I then picked up and purled all of these bound-off stitches.
- The subsequent RS row, I worked in [sl3, *p2, k2, p2, k2tog, ssk* p2, k2, p2, sl3].
- I worked a 2x2 rib for the rest of the collar, adding 2 short rows to the back of the collar at half of the desired height.


Overall, I am very pleased with this cardigan, which may be my favorite handknit sweater to-date. The pattern was excellent, with all of the readability and beauty of design that I have come to expect from Ysolda. The sweater itself fits great, with its lovely waist shaping avoiding the tendency for bulky sweaters to obscure the figure.

If I had to say one bad thing about this sweater, it would be that the sleeves are too long; I find myself constantly rolling them up and back down whenever I wear it. But whenever I look at the pretty ribbon on the inside of the zipper, I forget about the sleeves. (All cardigans I make in the future will have ribbons in them because I just adore that detail.) Vivian certainly took a long time for me to knit, but it was worth every minute I put into it.

Relate posts: Vivian part 1, part 2, part 3, & part 4.