WIP Wednesday

The Retro Wild top is done except for the duplicate stitching on the colorwork, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out so far.

I had decided that garter stitch would be nice around the bottom hem, but I was a little concerned that it might not work as well as ribbing around the armscyes. I ended up doing one arm in 2×2 ribbing, and one in garter stitch so that I could see how they both looked. Fortunately, the garter stitch looked good and didn’t flip or flare out, so I decided to use that for all the edges. I went down from 3 mm needles to 2.25 mm needles to do the garter stitch, then bound off with the 3 mm needles. The neckline was a little higher than I expected it to be,  and I didn’t want to reknit it, so I did one less garter ridge for the neck.

My poor Golden Vintage Cardigan has been terribly ignored, but last night I finished up the back piece.

I pinned it together, and it looks like it will be OK. It won’t have quite as much ease as I’d hoped (my gauge turned out a little tighter than I expected), but it should work out.

However, that means I’ll have a lot of pulling and gaping on the button bands. I knew that was an issue with this pattern, which is why I’d wanted to have more positive ease. I think I’ll try lining the bands with grosgrain ribbon – I’ve never done that before, but this seems like a good candidate.

I wonder if I remember how to make buttonholes with my sewing machine.

Probably not.

Say, does anyone remember the name of the little shop in town that has a great reputation for having lots of good ribbon? I think the name starts with a “T”.