Urban Aran Cardigan- done!

Yes, it's done! I finally installed the zipper in the Urban Aran Cardigan. I think it turned out well. I looked at a couple of zipper-installation tutorials, such as the one on Kristin Nicholas's blog and the one at And She Knits Too!

Both were really helpful. In the end I just lined up the zipper and took my time, no fancy tricks or techniques. Jason wore the sweater yesterday. Its warm. You'd think that he might not need it now that its just about May, but I actually saw snow this morning! Blech.

Filled With Accomplishment

This past weekend I had a great feeling of accomplishment, as I finished not only the first of the Jaywalkers, but also the Urban Aran Cardigan, excepting the zipper. It still needs to be blocked, but I'm pleased with it. I especially like how the collar turned out. I wanted a stiffer, more turtleneck-y collar and so, using suggestions from Streets and YOs, Aesthetic Entanglementz, and Brooklyn Tweed, I came up with some modifications that worked well.

Here's basically what I did:

1. Using smaller (size 9) needles, picked up the "correct" amount of stitches, as specified in the pattern, however, I did a basic ribbed pattern, rather than following pattern panel A up the collar.

2. Knit for about 1 ".

3. Did strategic P2togs and K2togs so that the collar was K2 P2 ribbing all around

4. Knit this ribbing for about another 1"

5. Switched to smaller needles (size 8s), and did all of the P2s as P2togs around

6. Knit the rest of the collar as K2 P1 ribbing to the top

7. Cast off

Next challenge: installing the zipper!

Yes...It Fits!

After some serious blocking, it looks like the Urban Aran Cardigan will fit- yea! I was seriously concerned that the many hours of knitting would be all for naught. After a bit of figuring out how to make them fit within the revised, larger armholes, I started the sleeves. I decided to do both at once so as to avoid the dreaded 2nd sock/sleeve syndrome. Although I haven't had much time to work on them, I think once I get going it should go pretty quickly, especially since I'm already really familiar with the cable pattern from working on the body.

Ok, update. I started this post a while ago, made some good progress on the sleeves (knitting both at once) and then realized I had made a major error way back at about row 6. As I made the increases on the sleeves I failed to keep them in pattern, so there was a big area of stockinette stitch at the back, rather than ribbing. Ugh. I frogged them back to row 6 and started in again. Here are two photos, one before the frogging, one after. When doing both sleeves at once, if its going well its great, if you make an error (in both of course), it pretty much sucks.