Wool Fair update

I have been working away on my Wool Fair cardigan, aka Lee Target 1232.

The cardigan

If you are a fan of working stockinette in the round because it saves having to do purl rows, then this is not the pattern for you. There is a lot of purling to create the textured knit shown on the cover. Rows of K1 P1 alternate with purl rows, so overall three-quarters of the stitches are purl. I don't find this so bad on the purl rows, but the K1 P1 rows are slow. The stitch effect is slightly obscured by my choice of a tweed yarn, but it does look interesting overall.

Close-up

The method of knitting the whole cardigan in one piece means that it goes from 66 stitches for casting on the back ribbing to 174 stitches at its widest point.

Progress so far

I've just started the backs of the sleeves, and these rows are long. Instead of Sleeve Island, I'm clearly going to be spending some time on Sleeve Peninsular. I can't imagine how the original knitters of this pattern wrangled 174 stitches on straight needles instead of the flexible circular needles we have now.

Showing the sleeve increases

Because I'm knitting with Aran (worsted) yarn instead of DK, the project and unused wool are a tight squeeze in my usual knitting bag. So as a break from all that purling I made a new, slightly larger, one. I used a remnant of curtain fabric from my stash, and lined it with plain cotton, also from stash. My original design seemed a bit shallow when I made it up, so I deepened it by adding a band of the plain cotton round the top.

The completed bag

Reorded on the Stashometer

It only used a metre of fabric overall but, as I don't seem to be doing much dressmaking at present, it’s better than nothing.