Ripple Cardigan

There is a new divide among knitting designs, a division between the simple and the complex.

I favor the complex. I've no hamu, havi, zen design here, although I honestly hoped for that effect. With its wide sleeves and loose lines, I thought this sweater might have Asian tendencies. Scratch that. The simple lines are outplayed by the dynamic ripples and with their curly borders. For something cobbled together from a small stash of dk and sock-weight yarns, it is surprisingly cohesive.

It started with this year's Summer issue of Vogue Knitting and the Ripple Pattern Cardi pattern, which requires four different colorways of variegated fingering-weight yarn. Since it is knit from the top down, substituting dk-weight yarn wasn't a big challenge. I began with the purple Koigu Kersti I had bought a couple of years ago when I was innocent enough to believe that 5 hanks would make a sweater. I continued with the coordinating variegated Kersti and two hanks of hand-dyed fingering-weight KPPPM from my sock-yarn stash. Thowing in some leftover Brooks Farm Duet (dk weight again) wasn't enough. I had to buy two hanks of Reynolds Soft Sea Wool in brown to complete the design. As a bonus, one real advantage to using multiple colorways is that it goes several of my shirts.

This brightly-lit photo comes the closest to capturing the perfect deep purple of the semi-solid portion of this sweater. It's not a trick of the lighting, there are different buttons in this outdoor shot. This cardi has been through a lot since most of the knitting was finished a couple of weeks ago. Sewing, blocking, two different applications of buttons and buttonholes, reblocking and two photo sessions, plus being pressed into immediate service when our local fireworks show coincided with a cold front.

The initial blocking seemed to work wonders for the ripple portion, bringing a overly small 30" midriff to nearly 40". As an experienced knitter might expect, it snapped back after a couple of hours of wear. The ripple portion is now 36", large enough that I didn't try to stretch it back out during the second blocking. The bodice, knit completely in dk weight, is more generous. It was chancy, but looking at the back shows all is well, fit-wise.

The ripple pattern and the fingering weight yarn in it pull the midriff portion in too much for the two coconut-husk buttons I originally chose. The second button kept popping out of its buttonhole. Luckily, indecision had led me to purchase another set of buttons. A little resewing easily converted this to a one-button cardi.

I was glad to revert to my first choice of button. I had two of these, but initially thought them too large. Now I've settled on just one clear plastic button with a brown center on a metal shank. Sturdy, with a bit of gleam, it's a little attention-getting, but not too much.

I can't imagine mixing complex buttons or cables with those rippled colors. My zen is blown away already. If I hadn't run out of yarn, I might have added the collar. Leaving it off was my only real pattern modification. Sure, I changed yarn, gauge (a little), and added a 5th stripe, but those are simple changes to make. Since I couldn't knit the collar, I used the brown to knit the first portion of the collar as a collar band, including the short rows at the back of the neck. Once the band was 1.5 inches deep, I knit the rolled edging to finish it.

I also ran out of purple Kersti, forcing me to use the brown for the rolled edging on the sleeves and the body. For the same reason (no purple yarn) the final border on the body is blue rather than purple. Running out of yarn wasn't a problem, since the project ended with a sweater success and a few less odd hanks of yarn in my stash. For more yarn details, see my Ravelry project page.