Now that it finally has cooled down, I’ve finished my cotton-linen blend short sleeved cardigan! Hooray!

The cherry cardigan
Pattern: Cherry by Anna Bell (34″ size)
Yarn: KnitPicks CotLin, in Moroccan Red, 6 skeins
Needles: KnitPicks options, US size 3 (ribbing and button bands) and 6 (body)
Begun: according to Ravelry, sometime in July
Finished: October 7

The obligatory model shots:

Front…

…and back.

I trusted the blub one more time with the photo shoot, and I think he did pretty well. He did want me to use the photos that were bordering on the obscene (he had me sit on the motorcycle, in a skirt), but other than that small disagreement, things went okay. The pictures are in focus! Wow!

Anyway, back to the sweater. I like it. The pattern was well written, but bear in mind that Anna’s patterns are not for beginners–she does a lot of “match decreases as for right side” kind of thing. As you can see in the above picture, the buttons do pull a bit. This is even with the five snaps you are directed to sew in between the buttons. They do help–it was not pretty before I put those on, and it’s still not perfect. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that (gasp!) maybe I should have made the next bigger size. I only allowed for one inch of ease. I probably could have used another one.

Sleeve with friend

So why did it take me so long to finish this thing? Well, I had “sleeve issues.” I knitted the first sleeve and it looked way too small. You may remember me mentioning this. To fix it, I did a crazy thing–I blocked it! To the measurements given in the pattern! And then it fit! Crazy, huh? The knitting world just keeps getting weirder and weirder! (end sarcasm)

Yeah, so if I hadn’t been such an idiot, I would have finished this a lot sooner. It is a lovely sweater. I do heart the buttons. I got them at Windsor Button, on my trip to Boston.

Sorrowfully, it must be packed away for the spring. Ah, well. I’ll have something to look forward to.

Thanks for all your nice and lovely comments about my walnut dyeing experience! I swear I’m just as squeamish as the next person. I did squeal internally when I first saw the maggots, but then my inner bitch took over (she does live awfully close to the surface) and took profound joy in mashing their little maggoty bodies to a maggoty pulp. Nobody f*cks with my yarn dyeing, dammit!

Words to live by…