Alien Trail

I am, for now, naming this sweater Alien Trail after a trail behind our house.  It's not even an official name, it's just someone has used sticks to make an alien face on a patch of open space.  It's a trail where Ritchie and I walk often on our daily walks.  We're lucky to have a vast trail system in the woods right behind my house.  We get to choose various trails every day.  Ritchie is particular that he doesn't like making U-turn, so we do loops of trails, and he often gets to choose which way we go as many loops connect together.

This sweater was knitted with Quince & Co. Chickadee (sports weight), one of my favorite yarns.  It's sturdy, woolly, yet not scratchy.  It's not soft like merino, but it holds shape better than merino.  The needle was size 4.  I actually made the buttons by wrapping yarn around large plastic beads, simply because I was too lazy to go shopping for buttons.

The design was inspired by sashiko type of embroidery using running stitch. Not an embroider myself, too tedious for me, but I like the simplicity of the running stitch. Though, the running stitch look here was created while knitting and not as embroidery afterwards.

The sweater was knitted from shoulder down to underarm in pieces with picking up CO sts from the Back Shoulder for the 2 Fronts.  Then the Front and Back were joined at underarm and knitted as one piece to hem. Sleeves were picked up stitches around armhole and worked in short rows for the sleeve caps before working in round for rest of the sleeves to cuffs.

When I started designing this cardigan.  I had a fairly rough idea. I knew it would be top down with set-in sleeves. I knew it would be a cardigan with contrast colors and changing colors where somewhere above underarm.  I knew I wanted the embroidery look right before changing colors.  I also knew I want very soft gatherings at the changing color point.  But both the details of the hem and the button holes were improvisations of the moment.  The monotonous stockinette stitch finally got to me after a while.

I'm liking the sweater, a lot.  The only thing I would've wanted, just for myself, is raglan style sleeves.  I guess all of my regular purchased clothes are set-in sleeves, so when it comes to knitting sweater, I just wish for something different, and I honest love raglan sleeves on me personally more than other sleeve styles most of the time.  But I do want to vary sleeve style a bit when it comes to designing.  So set-in sleeves it was.

I'm happy with the fit on me.  The only problem is the weather is getting a bit too warm to wear sweaters around here.