stitched: slanted sleeven

I think January might be the perfect month for knitting. Despite being in the middle of summer, this January included a bit of time off work, a relaxing weekend away with friends and an awful lot of tennis on TV. Turns out these are ideal knitting conditions so I celebrated Australia Day with a finished cardigan.

I have been eager to make a simple everyday cardigan ever since a store bought wool cardigan that used to fill that role was attacked by moths. That was about 7 months ago now but I couldn’t go and buy another because I don’t buy new clothes, so I just did my best to mend the holes and kept wearing it (and when I say I did my best, I’m lying because I didn’t try that hard and it wasn’t exactly invisible mending because it was just a store bought cardigan that had already shrunk in the (hand) wash). Meanwhile, I started plotting this.

The pattern is Slanted Sleeven, by ANKESTRICK (Ravelry links), knitted with 6 skeins of Quince & Co Chickadee in the Sabine colourway, a lovely heathered charcoal.

I’ve been eyeing Quince & Co yarns for a long while and it was a treat to knit with. My favourite mix of sheepy and soft.

The pattern is clever and the result simple and classic. It uses the ‘slanted continuous sleeve method’ a modified contiguous sleeve method developed by Susie Myers (SusieM on Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/people/SusieM) and I have to say that Susie is some kind of knitting genius. The shoulders look better than any I’ve seen on a handknit cardigan before. No bulky seams or problems with getting the ratio right for picking up stitches for the sleeves, just a gently sloping, aesthetically pleasing asymmetrical sleeve.

I chose a size based on my cross shoulder measurement which turned out to be XS, so it’s a snug fit elsewhere but that’s the way I like it. I wasn’t mad on the look of the panel of ribbing across the back (used for waist shaping) and since I was making this quite a close fit, I just omitted it  altogether. I also added a little length so it sits just below the waistband of my jeans.

After being disappointed with the last two cardigans I’ve made due to my poor yarn choice and inadequate attention to sizing (one didn’t even make it to the blog, just went straight to the frogging pile), I’m incredibly happy with the result of this one. An unusual summer cool spell hit just as this finished blocking, so it hasn’t had its buttons sewn on yet and has gone straight into high wardrobe rotation.

Don’t you love those rare occasions when what you make turns out exactly as envisioned?