Project Info
Pattern: Cats in the Garden Raglan by Katherine Paddison
Yarn:
- Vintage by Berroco
- Color 5185 – Teal/Blueish (1.5 skeins)
- Color 5101 – Cream (2.5 skeins)
At the time of making this, my cousin’s (9 y.o.) favorite colors were teal and pink. And while I couldn’t bring myself to make a teal sweater with pink cats and a white top, I thought a teal base and white top would fit her color choices, and of course she loves cats. The teal yarn ended up being much darker than I expected, but seen in the sunlight it lightens up and shows off all of the different hues of the dye. It’s a rather spectacular show when seen in the sun, but I suspect this sweater will not often be worn in the sunlight as it will have a jacket covering it. I knit her a kid’s size twelve, but due to my own uncertainties and fears of making it too small, I let my gauge go up a little and made it a little longer in the sleeves and hems and it looks more like an adult small…She’ll grow into it!
Time to Completion: September 11 – November 7
Working mainly on weekends as I entered my second year of graduate school, this sweater was not a super complicated knit (at least, not once you passed the cats!). The timing is more reflective of my busy weeks and fewer road trips as we navigated grad school/fellowship applications and I began working an additional ten hours a week as part of my program.
Project Notes: With a cousin who loves cats and is in need of a Christmas present, this felt like an obvious choice! I had never done a bottom up sweater that didn’t sew on the sleeves and the opportunity to pick the kitties around the base of the sweat felt too good to pass up on.
The most challenging part of this sweater was clearly the cats color work. Having done color work in the past, I felt ready to tackle this and I ended up cutting out and taping together the row of eight cats, writing in the stick marker colors between each one, and then counting twice for each row. Despite all of that preparation, I managed to miss a couple stitches here and there and the tension was not nearly as even as it has been in the past. Once past the cats, it was smooth sailing to create the sleeves and shape the neck. Creating the diagonals during the decrease section once the sleeves were attached showed me why my “cheat” for ssk stitches would no longer work and I stopped cheating in order to create the straight diagonal lines that I saw in the photos of other projects.
With the end in sight I blocked the sweater which did help make the tension troubles less obvious, and from there it was just about ready to be boxed up and mailed out!
#adventuresabroad 