Sirdar wrap cardigan in cotton

Although I love Sirdar Baby Bamboo, I wanted to make the wrap cardigan from Baby Bamboo too in cotton for my niece. Several people have asked me how the patterns knit up in 8ply cotton, and I just couldn't tell them until now.



Here is the wrap cardigan in Aslan Trends Glaciar Del Cielo (2655 Orchid), with the stripes and tie ends in remnants of Class. I did modify the pattern, knitting the body in one piece, as I wrote about last time I made up this pattern, and adding a row of single crochet as a neck edging rather than sewing on a knitted trim. You can see that I have used i-cord rather than ribbon for the ties. I thought a nice solid cotton i cord would be less likely to be pulled out or eaten by my 15 month old niece than a slippery ribbon.
I am planning yet another version of this cardigan for my 5 year old niece. It is lucky this is such a quick knit.

Class Top

This top required some maths. The pattern is Top D from Sirdar Just Bamboo Book 334.

The pattern as written uses 5.5mm needles, and Just Bamboo yarn, giving a loose open texture at about a 10ply stitch count. As you can see, the very smart camisole top here has a quite close and firm texture, minimizing see through in such a cool-to-wear top. It is knit from Class yarn (8ply, viscose/cotton) shade Bahama Blue on 4mm needles, and fits very nicely.

Jennie knit a tension swatch on 4ply needles and we worked out that as her row height was a little less than standard for her stitch count, she could simply increase the dress size chosen (up by 3 sizes in this case) rather than recalculate the entire pattern. When doing this it is important to check that not just girth changes, but the height changes of the garment, particularly when increasing or decreasing by row number rather than garment height in cm. Fortunately for our calculation tolerance, there is very little shaping in this garment, and the armholes are measured in cm, not in rows, so Jenni could essentially follow the pattern and end up with a well fitting garment.