Verdant: green deliciousness.
I started knitting this gorgeous "blanket" style cardigan last June!
The Caramel (Ravelry link) by Isabell Kraemer is an easy knit worked from the top down. It's seamless, but a faux side seam is created by a change in the stitch at the side seams and also on the inner arm. I kept to the pattern to create the side seams but omitted it on the inside arm. Simply a personal preference to finish this century. Faffing about with faux seams on the inner arm, that wouldn't be visible, was a slowing step I wasn't prepared to take.
I was doing quite well with this at the start, but I should've paid heed to the many, many others who commented on how very hard it was to keep going with the vast quantity, the miles, of stockinette stitch. I managed to get to splitting the sleeves pretty quickly. I added a few extra non-increase rows to deepen the raglan seam. I prefer me a bit of armhole breathing space.
Then you find yourself with close to 300 stitches on the needles. And juggling two skeins of yarn, switching every two rows.
Kill. Me. Now.
Every mind-numbing row was taking close to half an hour and with a row gauge of 32 rows per 10cm you do the math. It was freaking torturous. I put this baby to bed last year in about July and only recently pulled her out again when the weather started to freshen.
The saving grace was the utterly divine yarn. Malbrigo Arroyo how I adore you. Your incredible softness, your springy perfect ply.
And your colour! Fresco Y Seco the perfect green, with undertones of emerald, grass and even gold. Sigh. Given the hand-dyed nature of the yarn no two balls are alike, not even from the same dyelot. And as such, it's recommended to knit from two skeins to avoid any weird colour changes.
I'm glad I finally pulled on my big girl pants and stuck it out. Because seriously, I freakin' adore this thing. A-dore. Open and drapey, or closed with a brooch, she's seriously the bomb.
And I'm so proud of the consistency of my tension and stitches given the huge intervening break.
I'd have liked an extra inch of length in the sleeves to cope with the inevitable creep up that plagues me, but I was literally weighing my yarn as I knit the sleeves. I needed to ensure I finished the first sleeve at the halfway weight of the remaining yarn to guarantee I got a second sleeve out of it. Gah! I ended up with 5g of yarn remaining to get to this length. Phew...
Because this...
Happy days