Belarus by Kaffee Fassett
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/yarnstylist/belarus
Belarus is finished at last! My second heirloom knitting project of the year. I am taking my time with these knitting projects and I do feel I am enjoying them more. I chose Belarus because its unusual and stunning combination of colors evokes a high-end designer piece. The colors shade all the way from black at the hip (KSH wicked 599) to an ethereal silver tinged with lavender at the shoulders (KSH majestic 589).
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/yarnstylist/opal
The construction has a modern style, with the diagonal fronts allowed to curl under considerably, creating soft draped edges on either side. This ingenious design by Kaffee Fasset uses 9 colors of kidsilk haze, which may explain why the pattern is free. After spending so much on 9 skeins of KSH, the mind boggles at purchasing a pattern as well! The free pattern can be found here:
http://www.knitrowan.com/designs-and-patterns/patterns/belarus
Luckily for me, The Alder Wrap, designed by Kaffee Fassett previously in Rowan Magazine 50, uses six of the same colors of kidsilk haze (579, 629, 639, 595, 627, 596) and I had some black KSH in my stash as well, so I only needed to buy two balls of yarn.
When you put them next to each other, you do see the color similarity in the two designs, but they are each stunning in a unique way
I had always loved the Alder Wrap—that is why I purchased Rowan Magazine 50, and even when I lost my half-finished wrap, which fell under my seat on a flight home from Paris, along with all the yarn, I did not give up, and knitted it all over again. Kind relatives and friends contributed towards my yarn purchase so that I could afford to buy the kidsilk haze twice, and now all the leftover half skeins from the Alder Wrap have proved sufficient to complete Belarus. Only the color Majestic, 589 requires an entire ball. In fact, I only had a few scraps of it left at the end of the project, which I knitted in a size medium. So anyone who wishes to knit Belarus might consider finding a partner in crime because you could split the yarn cost between two people and yield two cardigans, only requiring a full ball of the Majestic for each project.
The design of Belarus features dropped sleeves. I had never knitted a drop-sleeved cardigan before but decided to follow the pattern as written to achieve the same color effect that the designer intended. I think it works fine except that I would recommend making the top of the sleeve wider by an inch or at least a half inch before you cast off. That width determines the fit of the sleeve on the upper arm, and I found it a bit tight, even after I deliberately cast off the top of the sleeve very loosely using a larger needle. Otherwise, I have no complaints to make about this project!
One technical note: The instructions for the front are a bit confusing regarding the decreases. You are decreasing for both the front edge and the side seams at the same time, and the instructions tell you to end up with 64 stitches apparently by row 61, as that is where the instructions seem to end. Although the instructions are not specific about what happens after row 61, you continue decreasing every other row for the fronts and you will reach a stitch count of 64 on row 75.
Apart from that little confusion, I thought the instructions were quite straight forward, and I enjoyed each moment of knitting this cardigan. It was a bit like color therapy, honestly, as the range of colors was so intriguing and beautiful and they changed so often that my focus was principally on the symphony of hues.