Bendigo Cardigan is Finished

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This is the finished Bendigo cardigan. It's from a pattern they sell, and the yarn is their "Rustic" wool in the color Peppercorn. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. The fit is great, the sleeves are the perfect length, and it's a color I like very much. It's a gray-green, but has a blend of colors in it, including green, tan, rust, teal, pink, and a few others, but it all reads gray-green.

I added the central strip of pattern stitches to the back. It was written just like the front pattern, but with a strip of reverse stockinette down the center where the buttons are in the front, and I thought that was kind of boring. Here's the back.


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I added the central diamond cable pattern, and the 2 twisted cables, one on each side of it.

I see that I started swatching for this sweater on the 31st of December, 2006. All in all, not bad for a fairly complex knit. Actually, the pattern was quite simple to memorize, and except for the shaping, it was mindless knitting. The real killer was the buttonband. It called for you to knit the button band, sew it on, (slightly stretched, I hate that instruction. It's so hard to get it just right) and then begin the buttonhole band, matching the buttonhole spacing to the sewn-on buttons, sew it on and sew a seam at CB. I couldn't see why I couldn't just continue around the neckline and do it all in one piece, eliminating the CB seam. It worked quite well, except it was very, very tricky to get the band sewn on just right, so that it wasn't too tight or too loose. I think I stitched it on several times, and ripped more than anything I've ever knitted, even though I was buttoning it on as I went along, and finally kept stopping every few rows to stitch it on, and holding it up to make sure it wasn't going to pull or sag. It was quite the challenge, but definitely worth getting it right.