FO- Lion Neck Cardigan

I forget how much city there is around me after a long snowy winter. As the weather turns suddenly, getting outside becomes a priority. I spent the past few days revisiting New York places that I abandon during the winter. Central Park, the Bronx Zoo, Prospect Park. All of these places are much nicer when you aren't sliding around on ice.

I had finished this rather dramatic cardigan a few weeks ago. Thankfully, the nights are still cool enough to need a cozy layer and I have gotten quite a bit of use out of it already. I was always a little leery of sweater coats. They looked frumpy and too bath-robey for me. I was fond of one that I had a few years ago that had a collar trimmed in ostrich feathers. One of my co-workers got drunk and told me I looked like a Mexican wrestler. ¡Dios mío! That comment tainted my Bette Davis fabulousness I felt when I was flouncing around the office donning my elegant sweatercoat.



It's just fabulous enough. The ruffle makes it Bette Davis chic, but not so overboard that it would be considered Bette Davis drag queen impersonator chic meets Nacho Libre. Meow.







The specs:

I used 9 skeins (about 1000 yards) of Rowan Scottish Tweed Chunky in Burgundy (funny, I just noticed that it's not a tweed yarn at all.) It's a fuzzy woolen spun 2-ply yarn. It does have a bit of an itch factor to it, but not so bad that it's uncomfortable on my bare arms.

The pattern is a top-down raglan from Wendy Bernard's "Custom Knits". It's a simple and fast knit, with enough shaping to make it elegant and slimming. I made the large size- in the sample, she has a tie that stretches across the front to hold the two cardigan halves together. I would rather have them meet in the middle and button in the front, so I went up a size from what I normally would make based on measurements. I crocheted an loop and salvaged an oblong wooden button from my button bucket. Unsurprisingly, the ruffle took a ton of yarn- at least 240 yards. After blocking, I ripped the sleeves back and re-worked the ribbing since they grew quite a bit.

*****
I have two woolie sweaters that are almost finished, and then it's on to more seasonal knits for me. I approach this time of year with mixed knitterly feelings- wool is my absolute favorite material to work with, but it's hard to sit on the beach in 80% humidity with an ever-growing wool sack resting on my lap.