Wow, so it's March already. Time really does fly. All knitting progress this week was on the Cosima cardigan. Being project monogamous is paying off, because as you can see in the pictures, I'm close to finishing. (Considering I actually started this last July, it's about time).
First up, we have all the pieces laid out in roughly the way they will be put together. Nothing's blocked yet, and even blocking won't stop the reverse stockinette sleeves from rolling inward; it's the nature of the stitch.
Here we have the bottom halves of the 2 front pieces. Part of the issue that some knitters have with this pattern is that the chart is less than ideal, so you have to really pay attention at the beginning and start on the right row for each side so that the rectangles mirror each other. It's actually much more difficult to deal with on the back, and I had 4 Post-It flags tacked to that chart and moved them every 2 rows.
This is the top half of the left front which I finished last Sunday while watching Sweet Home Alabama and the Oscars Red Carpet show. Pattern instructions were so confusing (I'm going to blame poor technical writing and editing) that I had to rewrite them on a piece of paper for myself so that I could just knit and not peer helplessly at the pattern every 2 minutes. Taking the 30 minutes to sort it all out in my head and write it down (so that I could check off every step once it was done) saved me time and saved me having to tear back and rip out rows.
On Wednesday, I got out of the house for a little bit and met up with my contributor, Lindsay, and she and baby Leah helped me pick out buttons. This cardigan only fastens at the top, and the pattern calls for 2 buttons to be placed side by side. So I got these.
However, I love this button. It's 1-1/2 inches (the buttons above are 1inch, and I probably should look at what the pattern calls for size-wise, shouldn't I?), and I may change the buttonholes to 1 larger instead of 2 smaller. That may depend on the writing of the buttonhole portion of the pattern.
Now, about the quality of the pattern writing, you may be saying, "Connie, have you written a knitting pattern? It's probably hard." And the answer is no, I haven't. I don't doubt that it's hard, but here's what I think. This pattern came from a booklet put out by the yarn company Berocco (and I have no problems with that). It's a booklet intended to drum up support for their yarn, and again, I have no issue with that. Unfortunately, this booklet, in my opinion, has too many projects in it (for 2 different yarns; consolidation would be good) and this cardigan would have benefited* from being a stand-alone pattern with more than 1 picture of the chart and completely and clearly written out instructions for each of the 2 front pieces. If I'm going to pay for a pattern (and I paid for this booklet), I think that the quality of the pattern should reflect that. I've knit many free patterns (i.e., from Knitty) that had better technical writing than this pattern, but I don't grump so much at a free pattern that isn't as well written because you get what you pay for.
Goal for this week is to finish the right front, block, and make a choice about the buttonholes. If I get really ambitious, maybe I'll finish the whole thing. Wouldn't that be special?
*that's a hard word to spell properly for me; I had to check a grammar site for a rule
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