Mary Mead Cardigan & a Photo Challenge

My dad commented to me last week that it looks like I haven't been knitting as much as I used to lately.  From the looks of my blog, he may be right.  Please believe me, I have not abandoned my knitting, there's not enough antidepressants in the pharmacy to deal with me if that were the case.  But I have been in school and that has really dipped in to my knitting time.  Especially since I like to knit bigger projects (mostly sweaters), they are taking a bit more time to accomplish.  Here is my most recent finished project the Mary Mead Cardigan.  Yes, I KNOW, another Andi Satterlund pattern!!!!  I am seriously addicted to her patterns.  They are well worth the money, all the instructions are very clear and the schematics she gives are so detailed it makes any indiscretions in gauge easy to deal with as long as you follow the measurements.   Considering I have an absolute horrid time with gauge, having her diagrams is a massive help.  Seriously, if vintage patterns had measurement diagrams I would most definitely use them more.  But they don't, so the next best thing is to find amazingly talented designers who love vintage styles and use them as inspiration for their designs.

 Andi's inspiration for this cardigan came from the BBC show "Call the Midwife".  If you haven't seen it, check it out on Netflix.  Nurses, midwives and nuns dealing with the post war baby boom in a poverty stricken area of England.  I'm not a fan of nuns or babies and generally try to avoid pregnant women like the plague, but I have fallen in love with the show and have re watched it, in full while knitting on my cardigan.

 Aren't these little kitty buttons just the cutest?  Yesterday, I went to 3 different antique shops in search of the perfect buttons for this cardigan.  I found 9, yes 9 of these adorable little suckers at the first shop I went to.  It can be very hard to find more than 3 or 4 of the same buttons when searching for vintage ones so I just knew I needed to scoop these right up.  I wasn't, however, convinced that they were a perfect fit for this sweater.  Although I adore unique and quirky buttons, I seldom use them for fear that they will make the garment less wearable with many outfits.  With that hesitation in mind, I went to 2 more shops and found some other options.  When I laid them all out and showed my boyfriend he immediately said the kittens were the best choice.  With that vote of confidence, I sat down and sewed them on, on the spot.  I couldn't be happier with them.

 In honor of Me Made May, I paired my new Cardigan with a skirt I made last winter and talked more about here.  The fabric is vintage 1940's and I took my chances winging it and not using a pattern.  I was a bit worried that I wouldn't have much to go with it, but it turns out that I have 3-4 cardigans that go with it wonderfully.

If you recognize this yarn, that's because you've seen it before.  I originally had other plans for this yarn, but that just wasn't meant to be.  It was clearly meant for this amazing cardigan.  I did make a few alterations to it however.  Because my gauge is always an issue, I did a lot less rows on the sleeves and did some serious fudging on the decreases.  Also, because I have a medium front and a small back (thanks to my big boobs) and I forgot to make the adjustments (damn it), when I was picking up the stitches for the button band, I picked up a lot less than recommended through the back and shoulder area so that it nipped it in a bit.  So far that seems to have done the trick and my sweater isn't falling off my shoulders like so many others like to do. 

All that was left to do was pick up my lovely girl (ok, young woman) and bribe her with ice cream to take some pics for the blog.  Words cannot describe how proud I am of this young lady.  At 16, she is graduating from high school in a few weeks and has already registered for her first semester of college in the fall.  She is a constant inspiration to me. 

She even convinced me to climb up on this giant fish.  Of course, I made her do it first though. 

All in all, it was a wonderful afternoon spend with my most favorite young lady walking around Pioneer Park, eating ice cream and smiling the whole time. 

In other news, my friend Jessie who blogs over at Lonely Hepkat is organizing a 12 week photo challenge this summer.

Each week will have a new challenge like, "go on a picnic", or "take a picture with a classic car", or "get wet".  I think this sounds like a lot of fun and I plan on participating. If this sounds like something up your alley, head on over and join the flickr group.  I'm really hoping we can get a bunch of lovely ladies to join in the fun.

XOXO,
Cherry