Saturday 20 February 2010

Gentle Rose


It's finished and I love it!
I wore it to work on Tuesday, which was also Knit Night, and it got lots of good comments.

It's been finished for three weeks, but had to be blocked, plus at this time of year I always have to wait for the weekend to photograph FO's because it's dark when I leave for work in the morning and even darker when I get home.
What I loved about it:
Moss Stitch edges
Cabling detail - the amount, process and the finished result
Beautiful yarn
Beautiful colour
Fluted sleeves which also turn in at the elbow to createa puffed look - they feel really nice and look flattering
Ribbing - flattering and clever arrangement - the ribbing on the fronts and back is echoed by the sleeves, the detail of which also taper at the side
Sizing is perfect
Very thick and warm
Speed of project - v. quick; took about 3 weeks
Would make another, or similar with modifications
What I didn't love:
At least one knot in every ball
Depth of colour differed noticeably, despite using exactly the same dye lot throughout
As you can see, the positives far outweighed the negatives.
The only modification I made was to knit the sleeves in the round (of course) and the entire body in the round, only separating at the very top of the fronts and back. This made it much quicker, and of course I avoided having to seam.
I would have picked up stitches and knitted the sleeves from the body, but I didn’t want to fuss over the sleeve shaping calculations, so I knit the sleeves in the round separately and joined them to the body using mattress stitch. I thought I would be able to kitchener stitch the top of the back to the two fronts, as I did on the neck band join, but as they’re ribbed they looked better with mattress stitch.

Yes, there is band of slightly different-coloured pink along the bottom. I used exactly the same dye lot for the whole project. As I have enough yarn left over, I thought about picking up the stitches and re-working that area, but there’s no guarantee that the colour will be right that time. Fortunately you don’t notice it so much when it’s on.

6 comments:

Petit Filoux said...

Wow it's amazing I absolutely love it!!!! Where did you get the pattern from? (or did you mention that and did I miss it?!) Either way, it's great, love the colour and the shape

Northern Monkey said...

Wow, it looks great :) I have the same cardigan on the needles but by that I mean I've knit the moss stitch cuff of both sleeves (at the same time using two balls on one needle so I get sleeves the same length!) but haven't progressed beyond that. Lovely to see a finished one though, makes me more enthusiastic about continuing with mine though I went for the taupe pompero as pink doesn't really suit me and wouldn't go with anything in my wardrobe. Great work :)

Dori said...

I'm really impressed! I have the pattern, but I'm waiting for the yarn, and then I'll be starting my own. It'll be nice to have this to refer back to.

Rowan said...

Thanks everyone, I LOVED it and would highly recommend the pattern. It's Gentle Rose from Simply Knitting (Issue 60, November 2009: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Rowanberry/gentle-rose).

wiwiana said...

Hey Rowan, it looks fantastic! It looks great on you too! I got the Simply Knitting with this pattern but never thought of making this until seeing yours. Though the dye lot thing is a bit disappointing, the colour difference is quite obvious that it can be seen from the photo. But overall it's a great cardi! And you're a fast and prolific knitter!

P.S. I finally started a knitting blog. :)

Victoria said...

Very nice! The colour is lovely and it looks like it fits really well:)