My first hand knit cardigan is complete! Hurrah!

This cardigan was made from the free February Lady Sweater pattern by Pamela Wynne that has been made by lots of people on Ravelry.

I’ve included details on my own Ravelry project page, but in summary:

• 300 grams of FibraNatura Lima yarn (100 grams = 260 metres / 284 yards), 100% superwash wool
• 4.5mm circular needles for the majority of the knitting, and 5.5mm for binding off
• the instructions for 35″ bust size
• 20 lace pattern repeats for the body
• 18 lace pattern repeats for the sleeve (+ the 1 row of lace pattern from the yoke section)

There are more photos down below, but overall I’d like to think of it as a success but I learned and thought about a thing or two along the way:

• Placing stripes where the buttons go was a silly idea. When the buttons are done up it can wriggle the stripes out of alignment. In hindsight I would have re-thought the stripes idea.
• My buttons are too far apart. I think they would have looked and sat better if all were in the yoke section rather than 2.5 inches apart as suggested by the pattern.
• Why does one side of the bottom sit higher than the other? I think that the overlapping of the button band has something to do with this, or I just didn’t lay it out well enough while it was drying. I’m guessing with time (and a bit of tugging) the bottom will sit even but it’s useful to remember in future projects.
• Learn more about making button holes. I should have whipped up a swatch and tested different techniques for making button holes. My resulting button holes are a touch ugly (but no one will be staring so closely at them for it to really matter).
• Garter stitch in the round is looser than garter stitch knit flat. This at least applies to my knitting, which I think comes down to a slightly different tension when simply knitting back and forth vs knitting and purling. I contemplated switching to smaller needles for the sleeve cuff to prevent them flaring but I didn’t, and I actually like them as they are.
• Lace stretches a lot after washing. I already knew this :) but for anyone curious, off the needles my cardigan was 46.5cm (18.25″) from the shoulder to the bottom edge of the bottom band. After washing it was 56cm (22″) so it grew by around 20%.
• Read more Ravelry notes before casting on. When you’re using a different yarn and it’s the first time with a project type it can be hard to know what suggestions to follow. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to suggestions avoiding a bubble of fabric in the underarm, but you try and you learn :)
• Perhaps a taller yoke… might have kept my buttons all in the yoke section and prevented the underarm bubble.