Friday, January 16, 2015

Knitting: Miette cardigan.

The Miette cardigan was one of the first projects I ever put in my queue on Ravelry. And I finally got around to knitting it!

I started on this cardigan back in August as part of Shannon's Summer Sweater Knit Along. Miette is a cropped cardigan in worsted weight yarn, so theoretically this sweater should have taken 2-3 weeks at the most. Ha. I had to start knitting for the festival, followed by my niece's birthday gifts, so I didn't finish this sweater until the beginning of November. And then it took me over two months to actually get photos of it!


When I started this sweater, I only planned on making one simple change: moving the bust dart decreases to the side so the shaping would be much more subtle. My gauge was a bit off, which ended up balancing out, but it caused a problem when I got to the end of the raglans and separated for the sleeves: the sweater was too tight under my arms. Because of that one little problem I had to rearrange things for the rest of the sweater, but I won't go into that here. (More details on my project page, which is linked below).

So basically, I had to do a lot of math (which I'm awful at) and figuring and frogging back one of the sleeves, just to get the sweater to fit like it should have originally. But that's okay because I took good notes (in case I knit this one again) and I'm happy with how it turned out!

I definitely don't want all of my sweaters to fit this snugly, but I'm relieved to see that I can actually knit a sweater that's not several inches too big. (My other two sweaters turned out a lot larger than I intended.)


Miette is a pretty easy sweater. It's mostly stockinette with raglan sleeves (which I love), twisted ribbing (which I don't enjoy knitting but love the end result...it looks so neat compared to regular ribbing!), and a simple lace design around the neckline, button bands, and the bottom of the sleeves and body.

Black is far from the most exciting color to knit with, but I was trying to be practical. I wanted this sweater to wear over my dresses to church, and most of my dresses have black in them. The yarn is KnitPicks' Wool of the Andes in the coal colorway.




16 comments:

  1. Beautiful sweater! Really wishing that I was better at knitting right now. :)

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  2. Lovely sweater. I just started teaching myself to knit again. It's been relaxing for me. :)

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    1. Thanks! I'm glad it's relaxing for you. :) Knitting is relaxing for me now, but it sure wasn't for the first year or so, ha!

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  3. Your stitches are so uniform and beautiful. One day I will knit that well. You are an inspriation to me.

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    1. Thank you! I have to say that blocking the sweater helped a lot with straightening my stitches out. :) One of the sleeves was very fuzzy and crinkled from where I had to undo my knitting and start over, but thankfully it smoothed out after being soaked.

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  4. You have amazing skills {which I think I've said before. but it warrants saying again, cause I think us humans are forgetful}. Sorry for the ramble, but you do have an wonderful talent & art & I think the sweater is the cat's pajamas. =) Thanks for sharing!
    -Bess-

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  5. Super cute sweater, Kristin! I had seen this pattern around, but wasn't convinced I wished to make it, however your version has convinced me I should. :)

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    1. Thanks! It really is a fun little pattern. I've always loved it, though I knew from the beginning that I was going to move the shaping in the front to the sides. :)

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  6. Lovely sweater! That length is just about as perfect for pairing with dresses as you can get.

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    1. Thanks! Yes, the length is really nice to wear with dresses. Though I think it looks much better with full-skirted dresses (which this one isn't). I wasn't sure about the cropped length on me at first, since I apparently have a short torso (I always have to shorten dress bodices), but I think it worked out. :)

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  7. Wow! It's so cute. I tried knitting once, but failed miserably, so I'm just sitting here thinking you must be a wizard.

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    1. Thanks! No...I'm no wizard, ha! I'm probably the least intuitive knitter ever and I'm very slow at it. I'm sure you could learn to knit, too! :)

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