Durran Durra Cardigan aka NACADOS

Whilst I have been avoiding my sewing list, I have been knitting. I started this cardigan on April 17th and finished sewing it up last night.

The pattern is Durran Durra Cardigan by Renee Ferguson. Its a free pattern that can be found on Ravelry. I've knit two and a half sleeves in total because I thought I knew better than the pattern what size the first sleeve should be and had to unpick a great chunk of the first sleeve. I also had to unpick the button band twice because I just could not get the buttonholes right. Mind it was my first attempt at knitted buttonholes so two unpicks didn't seem too unreasonable. I think there was an error in the number of stitches to cast on for the collar, which meant I had to rip back the first front all the way to the shoulder and start over again as the collar was so long it went right over my head. Some might say that would be an improvement but it might not be helpful in a "seeing where one is going" sort of a way. The collar can be worn up or down, as seen in the photos, though I suspect it will get worn down more than up. Not least because I thought I knew best where the buttons should go (ie. not where it said the pattern) and my mistake is less obvious with the collar worn down. I can't remember exactly why I decided to change the number and arrangement of the buttons... I daresay it seemed a good idea at the time. However, it wasn't the best idea I ever came up with and I think I should have followed the pattern on that aspect.

The sleeves don't make me happy. I've had another look at the picture on Ravelry and I am reasonably content that I've knit the sleeves correctly. However, I don't like the look on me. The sleeves feel too narrow for the cardigan and seem to begin too far down my arm. I am now wondering whether the yarn I chose was not quite right for the pattern style. I used Troon Tweed from Texere Yarns in colourway "Cherry with blue flecks". Its a rufty tufty outdoorsy yarn; an oiled aran weight which is not scratchy, but its certainly not all soft and fluffy either. Its a hard wearing yarn for making hard wearing garments. The knitted fabric has very little give to it and almost no drape. I lack experience in matching yarns and patterns but I am guessing that yarn and pattern were not the perfect pairing in this case.

Nevertheless, the cardigan is very warm, the colour alone will make me feel warm and cosy when I wear it next winter (or next week if this weather continues) and will work very well for its intended purpose. Peppermint Penguin has dubbed this cardigan the NACADOS, which stands for Not As Crap As Dad's Old Sweater. This isn't meant to be derogatory about the cardigan but was a response to my remark, when I was first casting on, that even if it did come out less than perfect, it would still be an improvement on the badly decomposing sweater I usually wore around the house, which had once belonged to my dad. I wasn't feeling overly confident in my knitting at the time of the conversation since I'd just frogged the blue aran hoodie after months of work had gone into it.