I breezed through most of this Kahlua cardigan but have stalled pretty badly right before crossing the finish line. The ribbing on this sweater is giving me so much grief. I’ve tried it two times and it did not look right, so I frogged. I brought it with me on a weekend trip to visit my sister and planned to give it another try en route. It didn’t work out, but I decided to put it on and start wearing it anyway. I am curious if fellow knitters have a “THAT GARTER EDGE IS GIVING ME ANXIETY” sort of a reaction, but it looks fine to me.
We watched The Art of the Steal forever ago, and had been telling my sister to watch it for awhile. After finally seeing it, we “celebrated” by visiting the Barnes Foundation to see Dr. Albert Barnes’ amazing collection of art arranged “just the way he would have wanted.” For anyone not familiar with the situation, his art was posthumously “stolen” and is now controlled by the group of people he detested most. ANYWAY, this is all setup to tell you that we were leaving the museum and saw the most beautiful wintry ivy wall, and we had a mini photoshoot. The light was so great, I barely edited these photos.
Some musings about the cardigan now. The instructions have you do both sleeves before the body, and I may have found a permanent new order of events when knitting a seamless sweater. The sleeves went so quickly, and gave me motivation to get through the body, so thank you for the idea, Thea!! I highly recommend the pattern, its very clever in its construction and has details that make it feel so special. While knitting, my k1 columns were very wiggly and uneven, but it all came out with blocking. I kirchner stitched the back neck seam and the underarms to make for a less obvious join. Its not seamless, though, because its purl ribbing joined with knit stitches, but it looks nicer than a 3-needle bind off or mattress stitch. More details of my saga on ravelry. Also wanted to give Call Your Girlfriend a shout-out! I just found out about this show and knitted to several back-episodes over the past few weeks. I am now a loyal listener and when a new episode comes out, it shoots to the top of my “Play Next” queue.
I used Quince and Co’s Owl in Tyto, and its very very warm and cozy. I love it! Now, on to the ribbing!! Third time’s a charm.
I made another 
I added side seam pockets, and topstitched them down on the dress front so they don’t flop around inside and make the side seams drag. I have found this also makes it easier to stick my hands in my pockets, so I like to sew them that way when possible. My other iterations of this dress have an issue with the back neck slit facing: it likes to peek out when I put it on, rather than stay put inside the dress. So for this version I topstitched it so it stays put. At this point in my sewing adventure, it almost goes without saying, but I used french seams throughout. For the ruffle, though, I used the entire width of the fabric so I took advantage of the selvage and left their side seams raw. I covered the ruffle raw edge with lace seam binding and it really does make things look better!
emilyWools 