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Monday, January 30, 2012

The Tea Leaves Cardigan, for me.

This is hilarious. I am here today to post about a sweater that I made for myself, the Tea Leaves Cardigan that so many knitters whom I respect have knit and loved. You may or may not remember that awhile back, I knit this sweater for the lovely Rosemary? I remember knitting it, and I remember writing about it, but I didn't remember hating the process as much as I did.

Now that my memory has been jogged, I do faintly remember being thankful that I didn't actually have a garbage disposal, because I was dealing with a strong inclination to throw the sweater into one.

I guess what they say about time healing wounds is true. If somebody had asked me yesterday how I felt about knitting up the Tiny Tea Leaves, I would have said it was simple and great - in fact, I even said positive things and gave it 5 stars on ravelry.

That said, having learned from my mistakes, knitting up the Tea Leaves Cardigan for myself was a much simpler task the second time around. It whipped up quickly, and I found myself feeling the pattern lacked in some areas. This is actually a good thing - noticing that the pattern is lacking - because I previously would have just blamed myself.


I love the color. I love the fit. I like the pattern okay. There was much hemming and hawing on the button bands because some people on ravelry did them all the way down. I decided to go with the pattern, but do find myself wishing I had modified it.


And here it is from the back. I made it with Berrocco Vintage yarn. This yarn is my favorite for so many things. It is soft, versatile, and comes in all sorts of pretty colors. But I don't think I'll use it for a sweater again. It's very heavy and stretchy. I find the sweater quickly loses shape, and wash it much more often than I would normally wash a sweater. I've thought about sticking it in the dryer one of these days. It is a machine washable/dryable yarn, but I've been hand-washing it. I put the Tiny Tea Leaves sweater in the dryer once and it seemed to change the texture a bit ... but maybe that's just what this sweater needs?


(The Lovely Sarah took the lovely pictures.)

1 comment:

  1. Kate! It turned out wonderfully. I love the color on you (and your photos are fantastic!). I agree that this sweater stretches out of shape easily, especially in the neck. Have found that for the ones I made for both of my daughters. I can also relate to how I hated making the first, then somehow forgot and made the second. And now I just love them. Kinda like childbirth....

    I am knitting up a Golden Wheat sweater for myself right now, my first sweater for me, and I have ripped it back to the start because of stupid mistakes about 5 times. I have learned many new curse words knitting, and my husband often asks why I bother. "It relaxes me," I tell him, and he looks at me like I am nuts. I am sure he is right!

    Ah, what we do for our crafting.....

    Celebrate your accomplishment!!

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