a hooded cardigan

My sister was admiring my cabled afghan as I was knitting it.  She also liked my rose sweater. So I put the two together and I suggested I knit her a cabled sweater, with the yarn she had bought for a sweater she was going to knit for herself but had frogged it.  The yarn was Red Heart's Super Saver Coffee Fleck and Real Teal.  I used US #6 needles on a 48" cable with a gauge of 5 stitches to the inch.  Row count was 6 rows to the inch, also.

The sweater is Kate Gilbert's A Cardigan for Arwen, (was free, but I now see it no longer is) with a few modifications as I am wont to do.  The first mods were to make it longer and to increase the armhole size.  Then knitting it as one piece starting at the hem, dividing at the armholes.  I Kitchner stitched the shoulders together.  Because I didn't know if I had enough of the teal yarn to finish it the way I wanted to.  I slipped all the stitches for the hood onto a spare cable and picked up the stitches for the sleeves.  Using the magic Loop and knitting both sleeves at the same time I knit down to within four inches of the right sleeve length.  Slipped the live sleeve stitches off onto holding cables and picked up the hood again.

I bound off the stitches around the back of the neck to add some structure to the neckline.  Then picked them back up on the next row and followed the directions for the increases for the hood and stopping on row six of the reversible cable to Kitchner Stitch the hood closed.  I messed up the Kitchner Stitch on the hood by reversing which needle you purl off and knit off of.  This gave me the ridge you see in the photo.

To add the cuffs, I provisionally cast-on the stitches I needed.  When I got to the live stitches on the cable, I would slip the stitch off the cable and k2tog.  Turn and go back to the other end of the row until I got all the stitches off the cable.  I undid the provisional cast-on and Kitchner Stitched the two edges together.  I actually had yarn leftover, yeah!

We decided a zipper would be the best closure for the sweater so a trip to Joanne's was in order to pick up a separating zipper in a 26" length. I used this you-tube by Feride Erbasar to attach the zipper.  I like this method better than the one by Techknitter.  I got a much flatter, more secure zipper than the methodology from Techknitter.

So with this knitting project I learned to knit reversible cables and a sewn in hem.  The bonus was a different way to install a zipper.

I almost didn't get pictures because my sister wouldn't take it off.  I threatened to take the pictures with her wearing it so she gave it up long enough for the pictures.  LOL

I'm glad I finally finished it and it is keeping her warm as she goes through Chemo.

I hope everyone is having a good day.

Judy