I made a raglan shawl-collar cardigan out of Manos del Uruguay Maxima yarn, in the color “Reindeer”. The yarn is very pleasant to work with, but being made out of single-ply merino wool it wears very poorly and gets very pilly.
I was gifted a whole bunch of skeins of the yarn a few years ago for Christmas with the express purpose of making a sweater. But sweaters need to be durable. Also…
… it came out wonky. The front hangs open when you wear it and it’s not secure on your shoulders. I’m wearing my very nice Usaato shirt in this photo 😀The pockets also gape open. The collar is too floppy and doesn’t sit close enough to the neck.The body uses star stitch. The sleeves use raglan shaping. The front placket and collar use 2×2 ribbing and short-row shaping.The buttons are (real!) leather with a metal shank. They were purchased from Austin Creative Reuse for a dollar. The yarn cost about $100 altogether.Underarm panel of seed stitch.The pockets are knit from ugly green alpaca yarn that I got for free from someone who thought it was too ugly to use. The darker green and gold stripes in the photo were my attempts to overdye the yarn with indigo and turmeric.The sweater was knit back and forth, starting at the bottom. The sleeves were knit in the round down from the yolk. The front placket and collar were knit back and forth from stitches picked up along the edge of the body. The sweater has false seams between what would normally be separate pieces (front panels, back, and sleeves). I knit kpk, then sewed the two knit stitches together to help stabilize the sweater’s shape.
Since fit and material were major problems with the sweater, I decided to take it apart and make new items that would better suit the merino wool.
The first item will be a cowl (or a dickie, since it will include some shoulder/chest cover)! My current scarf is kinda itchy and the ends are always in the way or coming unwound.The cowl so far. I’m using bubble stitch, which is currently in vogue. My goal is to create a textured fabric that better traps warm air, similar to how waffle-knit fabric works.
Future projects will include a night cap for sibling C and felted slippers for myself (:
