Pattern: Mermaid's Cardigan

Mermaid's Cardigan on Ravelry $7 (no account necessary)

An elegant cardigan just right for a mermaid. Gentle waist shaping follows your curves, and Fishtail Lace sleeves pique the knitter’s interest. By eliminating sleeve increases, the lace is not too difficult and the sleeves blouse out from an i-cord cast-on. To keep the lines clean and the hems from rolling, the entire cardigan is edged in i-cord.

What you'll love about knitting Mermaid's Cardigan:

• Stockinette body gives you some lovely, "mindless" knitting, while...
• The sleeves are filled with knitterly excitement - i-cord and lace!
• Integrated i-cord is used to great effect to not only smoothly finish your sweater, but to create your cardigan's buttonholes.

What you'll love about wearing Mermaid's Cardigan:

• Perfectly placed princess-seam waist shaping flatters your figure
• Lace sleeves give you a bit of ventilation - this is a great transitional cardigan
• The little puff of sleeve at the cuff - very subtle but very fun

Size/Finished Measurements
Women’s XS [S, M, L, 1X, 2X, 3X] (shown in size M with no ease)
Chest: 30 [34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54] inches

Materials

• Madeline Tosh tosh dk [100% Superwash Merino Wool 225 yards/206 meters per 50 gram skein]; color: Baltic; 4 [5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8] 
• One US6/4.0mm 29-inch circular needle (NDLs) 
• Set of five US6/4.0mm double-pointed needles (DPNs) 
• Coil-less safety pins/removable stitch markers 
• Waste yarn or stitch holders 
• Tapestry needle 
• Eight 5/8-inch buttons

Gauge
20 stitches x 28 rows = 4 inches square in Stockinette St.

Skills Needed

• casting on
• binding off
• knitting
• purling
• increasing
• decreasing
• working i-cord
• following written or charted instructions for Fishtail Lace pattern (both included)

Thanks!
Technical Editing: Ruth Garcia-Alcantud
Test Knitting: 3catos, elizek
Photography: Nicholas Dames

Everything you need to create your own beautiful Mermaid's Cardigan is provided in the professionally designed (by me!) pattern. Both written and charted versions of the Fishtail Lace stitch pattern are included.

Lovely knitters who purchased this pattern when it was originally released should have received a message from Ravelry that the updated version of the pattern is now in your library. Don't miss the special customer coupon code!



Thanks for stopping by, and happy knitting!
xoxo,

Springtime for Mermaids

I think of Mermaid's Cardigan as a Springtime project: worsted-weight yarn (it's not warm yet), but with a little ventilation in those lacy sleeves and a little waist-shaping to show off your curves.

You don't feel like you have a waist after this Winter's hibernation? Don't worry - the princess seams that create this cardigan's waist shaping give you the illusion of a waist. Seriously! I am a short-waisted, apple-shaped lady. Those princess-seam lines lure the eye upward, and the fabric curves along your body, enhancing whatever shapeliness you DO have.

The lace sleeves begin with a bit of i-cord for a blouson effect, which means no increasing in the lace (I love lace, but sometimes I want it to be not hard, you know?). And the i-cord edging ties in to the i-cord cuffs, creates the buttonholes, and keeps the stockinette edges from rolling. All that from something called "idiot cord" - maybe we should start calling it "smart cord"!

So, need a flattering cardigan for Spring? Try a Mermaid's Cardigan.



buy now

Happy knitting (and almost-Springtime)!
xoxo,
Kathleen

P.S. Want a little lace but no time for a garment? Try Mermaid's Mitts!

Countdown to Rhinebeck 2013: What to Wear?

Just three days left until the New York Sheep and Wool Festival! Lots of knitters work up a new sweater to premiere at Rhinebeck; however, since all my new sweaters are new designs still under wraps, I have to decide which of my published patterns to wear Saturday. It looks like the weather will cooperate, though it may get a little balmy (high of 68F). Hopefully it will be a little cloudy. As lovely as the sunshine is on all those colorful leaves, it starts steaming everyone in their handknits :)

So, having worn Sotherton last year (see below :), my choices seem to be Wavelette, Mermaid's Cardigan, or Bloc (the navy/tomato one) - lace for ventilation and/or knit at a looser gauge. If it ends up being quite cloudy, I would consider one of the Arans (Anne or Frederick) or Sailor's Valentine, but those are pretty substantial sweaters.

Annie and me in a pair of Sothertons at Rhinebeck 2012 (photo courtesy of Bananarota)

So, I put together a little collage to help me decide. What do you guys think?

What sweater to wear to Rhinebeck 2013?
Top: Wavelette, Mermaid's Cardigan, Bloc
Bottom: An Aran for Anne, An Aran for Frederick, Sailor's Valentine

In the end, I'll probably bring a few to choose from, so I have options :) 

Yikes! I haven't even thought about shawls. I guess it will depend a little on which sweater...

And I'll be working on some more ideas for the potential Unicorn project (what do you think of codename: PUP?) - thinking about yarn choices and such (I love finding local-ish yarns and indie dyers, so NYS&W is the place to be), as well as refining some ideas for magazine submissions. There's always more to do, isn't there?

Life has been a little stressful on the home front (problems with my ex), but I'm focusing on the good stuff, like Rhinebeck this weekend with my dear friend Annie; Nick and I going to LA next week (squeezing a five-year anniversary celebration into a work trip - can you believe we've never been on vacation alone together?), and "creating" a new knitter (private lesson for a great left-handed 3rd grader yesterday - saw her mom at school this morning who told me that she was still knitting at 9:15 last night, just as I'd warned them :)

Alright, I'm off to work on some pattern editing so that we can get some more test knits going. It's always more fun when I can share my stuff with you guys, rather than just the cats on the couch. Which should I get out of the way first: pattern grading a cardigan or translating a large lace chart to written instructions? Oh, and then there is the Pi shawl design that I knit up this summer and have to get down on pixels.

Hope to see some of you up in Duchess County this weekend. What are you going to wear?

Thanks for stopping by, and happy knitting!

xoxo, Kathleen

OTN: Mermaid's Cardigan

Bunch o' tosh in Baltic

Here's what I have on my needles right now. I'm about two-thirds of the way through turning this delicious pile of tosh dk in Baltic (love that colorway) into a cardigan. Working with a dk/worsted weight yarn is a nice break from the laceweight thing I've been wrestling with (now in time out for a second time). I've been working on this in fits and starts, since I've had some soon-to-be published patterns to review thrown in there, which I'm very excited to share with you as we approach the publication date.

Not much else to report here. Easter was quiet. And I've got the urge to design a new shawlette - lots of lace and fingering weight yarn giving me the eye from the stash. Still mulling over ideas,  but I think something will crystallize soon.