Angora Cardigan for Becky

I am always on the lookout for knitting patterns that I think will work well with angora or an angora blend yarn.  And I also want those patterns to be pretty simple--most of my knitting is done as I sit next to the girls while they do their schoolwork.  I have to be able to check their work using my manual.  A complicated pattern just won't work for me in this situation.

So it was definitely a case of love at first sight when I saw the ad for the Kid Seta Cardigan in  a knitting magazine published two years earlier.


 

http://cascadeyarns.com/patternsFree/FW145_KidSetaCardigan.pdf

For some reason, when you go to the Cascade Yarns patterns page, this pattern doesn't appear.  But if you Google the name of the pattern, it pops up. 

I just knew it would be the perfect pattern for a lightweight angora-blend sweater.  Becky and Charlotte fell in love with the pattern, too.

I decided to use the fiber from Fudge's baby coat.  Her baby fiber was absolutely ideal for spinning--extremely little webbing (tiny, tiny tangles at the ends of the fibers), which is quite unusual for a baby coat.  I spun one ply of her chocolate angora fiber and one ply of alpaca I got from a friend.  Becky loved the natural colors of the fibers, so I didn't dye the yarn.  

The pattern called for about 1800 yards of yarn.  However, based on my previous experience, I figured I could get away with less.  I spun 1300 yards.  I thought I might need a little more, but because I wasn't dyeing the yarn, I wasn't too worried about it.

I entered one of the two skeins I spun at that time in the Nevada State Fair.  It got second place in the blended hand spun yarns class.  I was competing with much more experienced spinners, so I was pleased with that result.

I had to adjust the pattern somewhat.  I still wanted to use the size 6 needles called for, but that threw my gauge off for the number of rows by about 17%.  However, it was such a simple pattern to alter that it didn't matter much.  That drastically reduced the amount of yarn I needed, but I still had to spin another 50 yards at the end.

It looks better on a real person than on the table.

The result of using an angora-alpaca blend is a very lightweight sweater--just 7.25 ounces--that is quite warm and so very soft. 

Charlotte is modeling for me, so the sweater doesn't fit quite right.  Becky, it seems, is never home.

I have already started making the same sweater for Charlotte and me to share using Phantom's baby wool.  However, I am making a few changes to the pattern that I wanted to make the first time around, but didn't dare because I was concerned I lacked the experience to make more substantial changes to a pattern.  I want to seam as little as possible.  It's not that I dislike seaming itself.  I really don't have a problem with it.  But I do hugely dislike counting rows.  So if I make it in one piece from the bottom to the armholes, then I don't have to count the rows.  Sleeves will be knit in the round and sewn in.  They will also be about two inches shorter.   I will use a three needle bind off to join the shoulders.  And I am using size 4 needles this time, but I am still getting the same gauge as I did with size 6 needles.   Go figure.