Killorgin: Artesenal yarn in cable

I promised actual garments, and here is the first of several unreported projects.

 

 I have been a very long time posting this cardigan, because the construction is a very long story. I started it in October 2012, on a long car trip (to Winton, very outback, so lots and lots of passenger time). Killorgin is gorgeous a top down construction from Carol Feller's Contemporary Irish Knits.

You can see from its appearance on the cover that it is a covet worthy cover project. I was really keen to knit it, but wanting it to be worn a lot, had to think carefully about my yarn choice for our relatively warm climate.

I picked a fabulous Queensland winter weight yarn, Aslan trends Artesenal, which has a wonderful tweedy look, whilst also containing enough cotton to make it suitable for the subtropical-excuse-for-winter cardi. Its other fibre is Alpaca. I had not used it before for a close knit cable pattern, so was interested to see how it behaved in comparison to a wool blend.

 

 My tension swatch worked out perfectly, so I thought I was good to go, and gleefully knit down to the waist shaping, then tried it on. Unfortunately, the size I made placed the central spaces of the largest cable "circle" directly over each bust apex. Having sufficient bust to feel somewhat self conscious about this I ripped out a good 20 cm, of the whole darned front AND back, and knit a bit more with some less bullseye placement of the cables. If I hadn't been in the outback at the time with no alternative knitting project and no yarn shops in 1000km in any direction, I think I would have given up at this point.Frogging this much is very discouraging. By the time we had returned home, I was back to the waist again, then discovered a horrible cable error (of mine) in the middle of the back, which involved ripping back 20 cm again, as it was too complicated an error (and cable) for a local fix.

 Guess what, other projects took over.

 It languished about until October last year, when I got it out to finish for a trip to New Zealand. I thought a nice knit jacket would be a bit smarter than polar fleece for lolling about in National Parks. I finished it off with a few minor modifications ( doubled neck for robustness, and grosgrain ribbon as backing for the zip insertion).

 It looked absolutely terrific until I had been wearing it for 2 days, when it assumed gorilla arm proportions and mysteriously elongated in the body by about 10 cm.  In wear, the yarn was too relaxed to keep the tension gauge properly. I was not happy.

 However, my younger daughter adopted the cardigan for a stretchy grunge look -not what I quite had in mind (fitted smart jacket was more my idea) but at least it is being worn.

 I love the pattern (aside from the cable space placement) and I love the yarn, but they are not a good combination. If I can work up the courage, I will be trying this again in a yarn with high proportion of wool, just like the designer intended ;). Artesenal is much better in more relaxed style projects.