Traveling Cardigan – (Finally) Finished Object!

Oh goody gumballs! You made it! Welcome, welcome.

Good news! I finished my sweater.

If you’ve ever knit or crocheted a sweater, you know the ultra-joy/ecstasy you feel when you finally work that lassssst stitch and then weave in your ends and BOOM! You’re DONE!!!

WHOA!! It makes you think…If I can do this, I can do ANYTHING!

What a rush.

So the hubs and I found this great park here in Charlotte, called Freedom Park. Holy goodness. It’s beautiful. In fact, everything in Charlotte is just so… pretty. The trees are pretty. The grocery stores are pretty. (Crown molding in grocery stores? LOVE IT!). The roads are pretty. The houses are pretty. The people are pretty. I feel like there’s nothing out of place and we’re in a movie or something.

So we headed out to Freedom Park 8 am on a Sunday morning to take some photos and what do you know… tons of people were out, running, walking their dogs and Tim even got asked about doing some photography for some guy. Ha ha!

Here’s all the deets, cuz I know you’re wondering:

YARN: Merino Wool/Cashmere/Nylon sock yarn in my colorway INK. Can you believe it? It’s out of stock. I only had a few of this color and it sold out before our move. But you know us… always coming out with new colors. If you want to make something similar, just get any fiber that’s a fingering weight and is either wool, cashmere or a blend. Sock yarn would work GREAT!

PATTERN: Yikes. I can’t give you the pattern either. But! You wouldn’t want it, because it was a custom design just for moi. WHAT! Yes. I used Amy Herzog’s CustomFit program. You measure yourself. Test your gauge by knitting a swatch with your yarn and preferred needle size. Decide on the exact type of sweater you want. Then type in all the info and SPEWWWWW… it spits out a pattern just for you. Is it magic? Me thinks. Or Amy Herzog is a genius!

NEEDLES: US Size 7

This sweater started in Fairbanks, AK… we were crazy busy shipping out all the yarn we had in stock, packing for our move, saying good-bye to family and friends…Then we took off down the Alcan (I just learned a few weeks ago that means Alaska Canadian highway. What?!)…I worked on it through Canada…and down through the US. Family visits and reunions and then finally Charlotte.

I worked on it while we lived out of a hotel room, passionately searching for the house of our dreams. I did some stitches while we waited allll Labor Day weekend…..to hear back if we’d gotten our house.

And then the final pieces were knit, blocked and seamed here in our new home (yes, we got it!). And yes, I blocked the pieces into the size/shape they needed to be before seaming them together. You just wet your pieces, squeeze gently, press out the moisture with a towel and pin into shape. I used cardboard as we had a ton of it from all of our new furniture.

And here it is: Your basic stockinette stitch cardigan. No buttons. Twisted rib for the hem and sleeve hem. And regular rib for the banding around the front and collar. 3/4 length sleeves. Took me nearly 2 months to make. (7 weeks, I think?)

I encourage you to make a sweater if you have a mind to.

Here’s the deal. Sweaters are awesome. Yes, they take weeks to make. Sometimes months. But they teach you so much.

Patience for sure. For sure for sure. They teach you to just enjoy each stitch without trying to rush to the finish. You know as soon as you get finished, you’ll immediately run to your yarn stash and cast on for a new project. Oh, it’s going to happen. We’re addicted, afterall. And I did. In fact, I started 3 (maybe 4?) new projects all at once after finishing the sweater. But I loved every stitch of making it.

You’ll be so proud of yourself! And who cares if it fits perfectly? It’ll fit somebody!
Boo made me laugh:

In further news, I made this rug! It got a TON (oh, my Lord) of comments/likes on Facebook and I got a boatload of messages and emails asking me what it was made out of, how I did it, etc. So we’ll get a video tutorial of it put up for you! It’s just merino wool roving and I crocheted a circle with my fingers using single crochets. Basic!

I’ll be posting again soon, so stay tuned.

I’m happy you’re here and that you read to the end!

XOXOXO

Chandi