Pattern: Featherweight cardigan (rav link), by Hannah Fetig
Yarn: Malabrigo lace, in the colour Natural 63
Needles: 4mm, and 3mm for the ribbing.
I chose to do 1×1 ribbing for the bottom edge of the cardigan, finished off with my favourite tubular cast-off. I worked the front edge and sleeves in stocking stitch with a rolled edge.
As this is for me to wear during the summer, I didn’t mind that the edges rolled back quite a bit, and I like the way the rolled edge looks at the neckline.
Notes: I was happily knitting away on this cardigan when I read Bell’s cautionary tale about laceweight cardigans. She, and many commenters, talked about the problems they had with some laceweight yarns felting and just not being sturdy to last. I looked more closely at my knitting and realised that the yarn was indeed starting to felt a little, even before I had finished working on it.
This is most noticable on the sleeves, where I picked up the stitches that had been knit earlier. Blocking the cardigan helped, as it made the newer stitches also felt slightly, but you can still see a ridge where the two meet:
I am happy with how this cardigan turned out but, given that it started to felt before I even finished it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out not to have a particularly long shelf-life. On the plus side, it only took me four weeks to knit, so I guess I’ll just enjoy it while I can!
Photos taken here:
To celebrate our anniversary last week we spent a wonderful long weekend staying in a fairytale chateaux near Bordeaux. I couldn’t resist slipping a couple of photos into this post – if you’d like to see some more, the Flickr set is here. Not bad eh?
