When good knits go bad then come right again

Oh the difference a day makes.

Again, I am ever so thankful that my mother is a knitter and lives in a small town with several little yarn stores which carry the yarn I need when the big city yarn stores have already taken the discontinued ones off the shelves. Thanks Mum. My clapotis will have a happy ending after all.


And my big pink blob cardigan. Last night I blocked the bejesus out of it (I think the official term is frankenblocking) and added *ahem* several inches of length. The girls and I went and got some more buttons this afternoon and she is all finished. And while it will not be on my 'most favourite knit ever' list I am reasonably pleased with the final outcome.




The pattern is by Suss Cousins and is called Assymmetrical Buttoned Cardigan (Rav link). I saw it in a book of Mums and was really drawn to the simplicity with just a little twist and probably, if I am really honest, the really cool buttons they used on the sample (which of course I couldn't find anything remotely like here). I am on the only second person on Ravelry to make this jacket (and only 7 people have queued it) so I won't go into too many details about the pattern itself since it's unlikely anyone reading this will be itching to make it straight away. If you are interested in the endless issues I had with this pattern (and the questionable tech editing) then have a look at my Ravelry project page. Suffice to say it is not a pattern I will be making again!

The yarn is my "go to" for aran weight patterns - Paton's Jet Alpaca/Wool - which I have used heaps of times before, notably this exact colourway for M's Ribbed Jacket (which now I think about it looks rather similar to this one). Once again absolutely no issues with the yarn and it does respond so nicely to a bit of a bath and my stocking stitch looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

So on with the photography...

The jacket is a boxy style (no waist shaping ) designed to be worn buttoned all the way up. I wasn't kidding when I said big pink blob!




You will note how it stops right on the widest part of my hips making me look even wider than normal. You will also notice the gaping button over the boobage area which itself appears to be somewhere around my waist. And somehow I don't have a waist anymore. Hmm so flattering.

I've watched enough Trinny and Susannah to know that a girl with breastfeeding DD cleavage should really stay away from turtle necks and tops that don't have a deep or wide neckline. Not sure what I was thinking picking this pattern to be honest since I'd never pick up this sort of style top in a shop!
(Girls with bigger breasts can check out the "rules" here - there is even a page where it says not to choose boxy short waisted jackets!! Personally I hate they way they refer to "tits" but if you can get past that, the clothing advice is pretty good)

All is not lost however. Thinking more about what *does* look better on my figure I decided to see how the sweater would look without that big collar and maybe a few of those other buttons undone as well....



Perfectly acceptable yes?

Wider neckline stops the big balloon front thing happening and because its falling from the chest there is even just a hint of a waist.

It's not how it was intended to be worn but I think it will do just fine. I know you can see the neckline/button band seams and it doesn't appear so asymmetrical worn this way but I'm pretty sure no one is going to come up to me in the street to ask why my collar isn't the same size on both sides.

It may be relegated to an at home sweater but since I spend a lot of my time just at home that's fine with me. The main thing is that it was salvaged and all that knitting (and nice yarn) was not in vain.



So not a great success but not a complete ugh either. The end result was a wearable sweater (I'm so pleased) and lots of lessons learnt - there won't be any more knitting of patterns that haven't had a bit of Ravelry attention (personally I like a heads up if anything is going to be amiss) and there won't be any more admiring of sweaters who don't fit the rules! I DO know what styles suit me and this was a good lesson in using that knowledge when I'm thinking about knitting for myself. This whole experience also reconfirmed for me that top down raglan/yoked, where you can try on as you go, is the only way I want to knit - there's nothing as gutting as spending all that time and skill only to find (once you've gone through the agony that is seaming) that your sweater doesn't fit/flatter/do justice to your efforts.

So, big pink blob sweater, you may not be my best ever sweater, hell, you're not even a just plain good sweater, but you are the sweater that will make sure all the rest to follow are better!

M7 and I were rushing to get some pics before the light faded all together (winter....sigh) so they aren't the best I'm afraid. There are a few dodgy bathroom self potraits on flickr too