The Selfish Sweater Knit Along

I'm back today with my Anouk Cardigan that I knit for the Untangling Knots "Selfish Sweater KAL" that runs through until this Sunday.

Knitting at a hockey tourney -
I thought I'd get lots done during the six game/eight hour day,
but alas eventually my fingers got too frozen to knit.  

Like many of Andi Satterlund's designs, Anouk is a sweet cropped cardi.  It features full length long sleeves and an squishy garter stitch band on the body and sleeves as well as for the button band along with a garter stitch motif at the back neckline and around the waist.  It's an easy knit - so don't judge it on the fact it took me ages to get done (I started way back on Boxing Day!).

I had knit the body of Anouk very quickly, then realized as I was finishing up the diamond motif at the waist I had mucked up the motif at the neckline.  After humming and hawing and trying to convince myself to just leave it, call it a design feature and move on, I ripped it all out and re-started. I knew that even if not one other single person on earth noticed the mistake, I would know it was there and would, as a result, never wear the cardigan.  And who wants to go to all the trouble of knitting something that's never going to see the light of day? Not me!!

Re-knitting it seemed to take a very long time.  I think once you're knitting something the second time around the motivation gets lost a bit and the enthusiasm lags.  Once the body was finally done I tackled the sleeves.  Full length sleeves.  I hate knitting sleeves.  If the body took a long time to knit the sleeves seemed unbearably longer.  I almost packed the whole thing in at one point.  I was just tired of knitting it.  Not the pattern's fault - just me.  I wasn't in love with the wool I was using - an old de-stash purchase I'd made a couple of years ago of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Superwash and I think that made it worse.

Late night knitting, wondering if I'll ever finish it.

I'm glad I didn't give up though.  I'm pretty happy with the end result.  Still not loving the Lamb's Pride, but it's slowly growing on me.  I don't currently really have any dresses to wear with the cardi - I'm in the process of rectifying that but it's not been without it's challenges as well... More on that another day.

Button, button, who's got the button?  My Anouk cardi! That's who!!
The most boring buttons on the face of the earth,
but they were the only ones remotely suitable at Fabricland.

There's not much else I can say about this cardigan - I think I'm still feeling a bit grouchy towards it for taking so long to be knit to be honest.  I had envisioned having it done in no time especially given the mindless stockinette and garter stitch.  To tell you the truth though?  I personally think lace is quicker to knit.  It keeps you on your toes, keeps you interested and just seems to move along much faster.

Now I'm off to wield my mighty stitch ripper and do battle with my Emery Dress I'm currently trying to make.