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The Story:
This year, for the first time, I decided to go to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival, and really wanted to wear something that I had designed and knitted. I don’t have much time to knit for myself, so I wanted a versatile garment and thought gray would be a good color choice.
For the yarn, I chose Princess for its soft hand and durability—and it had the perfect gray! I began the design with the idea of a cardigan with waist shaping. I added ribbing to the borders to keep them from curling and swatched different lace panels to add to the fronts. Originally the cardigan was only going to have a lace panel on the right front, but after I chose the lace pattern, I decided that it worked best if I used it on both. I made a rather wide neck opening, and then as the weather got cooler, I decided to add the high collar for warmth.
I really like wearing neutral colors and adding an accessory for a touch of color. This time, however, I decided to give the cardigan its own color spark by working the buttonhole band in a lovely rose color.
The Yarns:
Princess — 40% merino, 28% viscose, 10% cashmere, 7% angora, 15% nylon
Last week we featured a hat in the ultimate luxury yarn—cashmere. This week’s project uses Princess, a recession friendly-luxury yarn. Princess is an interesting blend of several fibers that includes a bit of cashmere and angora. The yarn’s round, multi-ply construction makes it great for highlighting texture stitches and lends strength and durability. (You’ll want to keep a pair of scissors handy when you work with it—you can’t break it by hand.) But the cashmere and angora content takes the crisp edge off the yarn—it has a soft halo and gentle drape that develops as you knit with it. And it positively blossoms after its first hand wash.
The best thing about Princess is its reasonable price. It comes 150 yards to a 50-gram ball and knits up anywhere from 4.5 sts to 5.5 sts per inch. And the 29 colors in its palette are rich and lively.
The Stitches:
All of the increases used in the Lace Panel Cardi are worked as k1-b/r. This is the abbreviation that we came up with to describe my favorite way to increase stitches.
The k1-b/r increase is easy to work and the new stitch fits in neatly and snuggly with the ones surrounding it. The increase is worked by knitting into the stitch in the row below the next stitch on the needle and then knitting the stitch on the needle—two stitches in one. Because you are knitting into a stitch and not pulling up a strand, as in a make 1 (m1) increase, the new stitch doesn’t disrupt the tension of the previous row nearly as much.
Another thing that I love about this increase, when you work two k1-b/r's next to each other, specifically when working raglan shaping, a neat straight line of slightly raised stitches in formed.
Learn how to k1-b/r.
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more photos
The Pattern:
Here is the free downloadable Princess Lace Panel Cardi pattern.
If you have difficulty downloading or printing the PDF pattern above, try these:
page 1, page 2
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