I was recently entranced by a cardi pattern – does that ever happen to you? It was the Tissue Cardigan in the spring issue of Interweave Knits – I liked the bell sleeve and the woodsy-lace looking yoke. I’ve had some Brooks Farm Mac Acero in my stash for almost two years now I’d purchased at Stitches Midwest, and was looking for something just like this, something rather uncomplicated that would show off the gradations in the yarn, but something with a bit of drape. I thought this would be the perfect pairing.
I soon discovered that although the Tissue Cardi is listed under “minimal finishing required” it has quite a lot of finishing and picking up. The sleeves alone are finished off and picked up three times, in addition to being knitted flat and then seamed. Being the adventurous knitter that I am, I decided that I could easily convert this to the round and do a whole lot less finishing.
my knitting advisor supervises my knitting closely
Body – The body was designed to be knit in three pieces; I eliminated one stitch on either side and converted it to be knit in one piece with a one-stitch false purl seam. The body requires a three row garter stitch border at the bottom in smaller needles (which I missed until I was 3″ into the body, so I’ll do that part later as part of the finishing), then one switches to larger needles to do the yos and miles of stockinette. I left off at the armpits and then went on to the sleeves.
Sleeves – I co 55 sts for the sleeves, joined in round and worked 3 rows garter stitch with US5 needles. After 1 more row in stockinette, I did *k3 yo* around to get my increases, resulting in a nice, matching set of yarnovers at the cuff. Two more rows in the smaller needles, then I switched to US7 and completed the rest of the bell, finishing with k2tog decreases and then switching to US5 again for 3 rows of garter st to create the firm band at the top of the bell. Having done that, I then followed the pattern for the upper portion of the sleeve, except I continued to use US5 as I liked the firmer fabric. They came out great!
Yoke – the yoke of this sweater is lower at the back center, and then there are stair-step bind-offs 9sts wide alternating rows moving outward, leaving you with a wide U-shape, Many (not all) of these sts are then picked up to form the yoke. I’ve decided to accomplish this portion with short-rows instead. I’ll also be joining the sleeves first; this sweater fits perfectly EZ’s percentage system for a yoked sweater, so I’m using her numbers for underarm sts to join and then doing raglan decreases, again for less finishing. Still working on a sleeve, so we’ll see how it goes.
