Monday, December 19, 2011

The 3 Cardis

You've heard of the 3 Tenors, now let me introduce you to the 3 Cardis.



You've already met the Red Palm Bohus taking center stage here.  She's being made from merino and bluefaced leicester handspun yarn and is now on the round and round and round never-ending stockinette in the round stage.  It would probably be considered boring if it weren't for the yummy softness of the merino yarn.

To the Red Palm Bohus' right, please welcome the Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Fibonacci Cardi.  This is yarn I bought at Athena Fibers in Sioux Falls, SD, a few years ago.  When I bought these wonderful colors (worsted weight single ply 75%wool/25%alpaca), I bought them for the express purpose of knitting a Fibonacci stripe sweater from them.  Every time I've seen them in my stash, I've reminded them that one day they would become a wonderful, happy Fibonacci striped sweater.  The day has finally arrived. 

I know the tube above doesn't look like much now because it will have to be steeked before it becomes a cardigan but just you wait.  I realized I needed to steek it at the point I realized that the nature of Fibonacci means that I would have odd numbers of rows every other time and there would be no way of syncing the working ends without either steeking or having to work in a thousand ends.  Naturally, faced with that choice, steeking was a no brainer. I don't have a pattern for it but the plan is to knit for a little while longer (I'm about 2 inches past the armhole shaping) and then set it up for saddle shoulder sleeves and a crew neck.  It's all part of the adventure. 

The great thing about this yarn (other than it's obvious fabulousness) is that it's fairly chunky and is knitting up super fast.

And last, but definitely not least, on stage left, is the Kauni Cardi.  This pattern made the rounds a couple of years ago and I found it interesting but I always fall into these things late in the game so I've just started mine.  Actually, I started it a couple of months ago and got most of it done really quickly.  For some reason, I've stalled on the second sleeve and just need to get my butt in gear and get it finished. 

I find this pattern fascinating because it uses two multiple color (honking big) skeins of yarn.  Same yarn but you start at different points of the colorway so you're only ever working with 2 strands of yarn.  The color effects come from the changes in the colors in the yarn.  Isn't that a great effect?

If you choose to work this pattern, be prepared to have to fill in a lot of blanks or just kind of go your own way.  The pattern is, at best, just a sketch of what you will do.  But for this sweater, it's worth the effort.