I am so happy to have finished my cardigan at last! This is Bay, a design by Kim Hargreaves from one of her first summer books, Nectar. I had hoped to finish Bay in Paris with the idea of photographing it somewhere fabulous like the Louvre, but I had to content myself with my rose garden instead. We returned to find our rose garden in full bloom, and what a sight it is!
There are 35 rose bushes in our garden, and they are all old English rose types, hybridized by David Austen. The pink rose bed is my favorite:
I miss Paris already, but the roses are consoling me, as well as this lovely finished cardigan. Bay was a tricky pattern to knit because Kim Hargreaves designed it for denim yarn. When you knit with denim, you factor in the shrinkage that occurs after washing, so denim patterns are written with more length than a regular design. However, I had some fabulous Malabrigo Arroyo yarn that I wanted to use up so I decided to take the plunge. The Arroyo has a rich, slightly variegated blue that has a bit of the look of denim, but with more sheen.
So how do you adapt a denim knitting pattern for regular yarn? According to what others told me, denim loses between 8-18% of its length after it is washed, and so denim knitting patterns are written accordingly. It is that extra length that is our concern here. Unfortunately, there is a big spread between 8 & 18! I wondered by what percentage I should shorten my cardigan in length. Luckily, I was able to find the free pattern, Core, which is available on the Rowan website. Core is a jacket that was originally designed using Rowan denim but was also modified so it could be made using All Seasons cotton.
http://www.knitrowan.com/designs-and-patterns/patterns/core
Core is written by Kim Hargreaves who is also the designer of Bay. This was perfect, as I assumed she would use similar approaches across her patterns, so the calculations she used in Core might be a good guide for my adaptation of Bay. It is also really useful for anyone who wants to adapt a denim knitting pattern because you can see the two versions side by side and make a step by step comparison. When I compared lengths in Core between the denim and cotton version, there was roughly a ratio of 8-10% less in length so I chose 10% as the factor for shortening my Bay. I also used a template sweater that fits me well as a guide to compare lengths and make sure my fit was on track. I reduced row lengths by 10% in all areas of the Bay pattern, including body length to underarm shaping, depth to underarm, and the point where the shoulder/neck shaping starts. But I kept the peplum the same as I wanted mine to be longer than intended, so there the extra rows provided were a real help. One of the most important areas to reduce length is in the sleeves--you can go really wrong there, so watch out! I think the sleeves still came out a teeny bit too long because I didn't bring my template with me while I knitted the sleeves in Paris.
You can easily calculate a -10% length for your non-denim knit by looking at the measurements in the pattern for each section (pattern requires 22cm. Subtract 10% or 2.2cm =19.8 for you, for example). But I strongly recommend that you use your template garment as a guide throughout to double-check your calculations and ensure a good fit.
I chose this pattern because of the fabulous peplum, which is in fashion once again.
It is constructed quite differently than Kim Hargreaves’ other peplum patterns. Kim Hargreaves is known for her peplums, but most of them are made by knitting a small number of stitches from side to side in a long strip which is then turned sideways to form the bottom of the garment. I am not a huge fan of that mode of construction so I was delighted to see that the peplum in Bay has a much more straightforward design. Bay’s peplum is created through a large cast on of double the number of stitches than are needed for the body of the sweater. This wide section is knitted straight up until the peplum is long enough, and then it is gathered into a ruffled shape through a K3 together K1 sequence. To ensure even more waist shaping, you downsize to a smaller needle to knit the waist section and then upsize to a larger needle to form the increases up to the bust.
In order to ensure proper fit in the chest area, I added two inches of bust darts:
I knitted my horizontal bust darts starting two inches below my full bust point. The two inches of short rows were spaced with one stitch in between each wrap, ending 7 stitches in from the edge on both sides. I am very happy with the fit in the bust area that resulted from the use of darts—there is no gapping at all in the button hole band.
Things have been a bit hectic since our return from Paris, but I will write soon to describe the adventure of the 50 American knitters descending on Anny Blatt. It was a sight to behold!