A Lloie Cardi All My Own

Last July at Knitting Camp, the sweater knitting urge took over. Really, how could it not when all of EZ, Meg and Joyce's sweaters are right there, available to try on and wear when the air conditioning gets cranked up. This is the sight of the tables after a day or so of camp.
One sweater in particular caught my eye--the Lloie cardi from last year's anniversary Woolgathering #79. It was wrapped around my shoulders so much I think some of the campers thought it was mine.

Well, now I do have one of my very own. Even though it's kinda unlike me to make a duplicate of the model, the colors of Lloie were so perfect that no changes were needed. The only different touch I made was to replace the regular ribbed borders with a lacy stitch pattern which reflects the colorwork at the yoke. It's also edged with a 2 stitch applied I-cord which gives a nice finishing touch.
Lots of different needles were used. Regular Addi turbos in size 3mm for the body section. Boy, how I've forgotten what it's like to knit inch after inch of St st in the rnd--the turbos give the speed needed especially with the stickiness of the Shetland yarn. The yoke was knit on Crystal Palace Bamboo needles in size 3.25mm. I like doing colorwork on wood needles as the stitches stay put when they're spread out and my tension stays even. And, my stranded st gauge tends to be tighter than my St st gauge, hence the need for a slightly bigger needle. The sleeves were knit on Addi turbos in size 3.25mm, just slightly larger than used for the body. That's because my small circumference gauge is tighter than when knitting a large circumference. Joyce Williams told me to watch out for this and when Joyce speaks, definitely listen! Yeah, it took me half a sleeve to remember that but once I did and checked gauge, out it came and reknit with the larger needle.

Since the body is steeked, but is a solid color, I wove a contrasting thread up while knitting to mark the beg/end of rnd figuring that it would make it easier to stay on track when crocheting the steek. Worked like a charm for these old eyes!
It's been five years since I've knit a sweater for myself and I'm, ahem, a different size now, so it took a bit of measuring to decide the proper size. Seems I miscalculated the length because when the yoke was finished and I tried it on (before the steek was cut), it seemed too long. What to do?

Well, perform some surgery.
I placed my needle through one side of the sts and snipped and unraveled a a thread as one would do for an afterthought heel. Then unraveled the requisite # of rnds and grafted back together.

You can still see the grafting line a bit here but a little steam works wonders.
Crocheted and cut the steek, applied some I-cord and voila, a finished Lloiecardi. It still hasn't been blocked in this pic. In fact, I even wore it to church this morning in it's unblocked state because the weather turned cold and it was just too fun to have a new handknit sweater.
Here's a close up of the yoke. I added more short rows at the top than specified in the instructions as the pic of Meg's sweater looked like it was done that way.
Besides, I hate when sweater necklines pull up and love how the white petals sort of get elongated.
Right here is where I should have a pic of me wearing it to insert. Maybe one of the knitters at Knitnight can take one of me this week.

Many more sweaters are in the works around here now so it definitely won't be another five years before another is finished. The sweet siren song of St st in the rnd, with a fun topping of stranding for a reward at the end is too strong to pass up. In fact, I'm thinking about always having a yoke sweater on the needles as a take along project.

Yoke sweaters--the new socks.