From one extreme to the other

I made a lace cardigan.  First I bought the pattern and thought about it.  Don't bother me, I'm counting thinking about knitting!

Then I joined a KAL (Knit-A-Long) on Ravelry.

And then I swatched.

Pattern: Lalique by Laura Patterson
for The Sanguine Gryphon yarn company

Yarn: Tess' Designer Yarns Superwash Merino Lace (100% merino)
1.25 skeins or approximately 625 yards
colorway not specified but I would describe it as a pale golden brown
 I picked up this yarn a few years ago at Maryland Sheep & Wool. A fine souvenir from a memorable day.

Needle size: US5
Actually, the above swatch is done in US4 and the gauge is just a wee bit too small.  Instead of knitting a new swatch with a larger size needle, I just guessed and dove right in.   I know!  Knitting without getting gauge - gasp! I'm so reckless!

 

Here's a close-up of what will be the front edge of the cardigan.  The bellflowers totally make the garment for me.  So pretty. Some folks are beading their cardigans.  But after some experimentation, I decided against it.  Delicate lace is already a stretch for post-modernist stockinette-loving me.  I'm not quite ready for beading just yet.

The body is feather-and-fan repeats.

After admiring my swatch for a bit, I cast on and knitted and knitted and knitted.  Then I knitted and knitted and knitted some more (I can be quite obsessive.)

The result: the body of the cardigan in all its knitted glory.  Pre-blocking, it's just a hot mess.  But I had faith in the blocking process.

  

A few wires and a plethora of pins later!  One great tip that I got from the KAL, block the garment in half so that each side matches.  If you look closely, you can see the wire that bisects the body.  I didn't thread it through the lace - I just simply folded the lace over the wire.  I did thread the front of the cardigan through a wire and used a flexible wire for the armhole.  Everything else was pinned in place (including every single point of the hem which gave it a nice scalloped edge where the feather-and-fan meets the bottom edging.)

Another tip to anyone knitting this pattern: Specifically for the edging, ignore the charts at first and just follow the written directions exactly. In my opinion, the charts for the edging are too confusing since they don’t follow traditional charting conventions (i.e. there is no RS or WS). 

Next up: sleeves and finishing!