Almost twenty years in the making.....

This weeks UFO finished.... I started this knitting in about 1998 - it was going to be a fringed coat - Why I have no idea, and somewhere as I had knitted up the back, divided for arm holes, and was about to go over the top and back down again I obviously decided I didn't like it so much.  It was as patterned above and then I had done circular flower type blobs with embroidered stems - it wasn't looking good!!  I think I was trying to rescue something I just hadn't thought through, so it got bundled away needles wool and all and stashed until I was looking for wool to knit an Icelandic jumper and it re- emerged... I kept revisiting it and it traveled through our various house moves...

Finally almost twenty years later I had another look at it.  The dimensions were wrong, as it had been intended to be a coat the back was very wide - too wide for a cardigan or jumper back but not wide enough for a back and front!!! In the end I unpicked the embroidery and I pulled most of it back.  I didn't have the pattern - if in fact I ever did... but it was easy to copy and I decided it was wasting away so anything I made would be better then all that lovely 100% wool sitting doing nothing.  I found a pattern with similar tension and looked at stitches needed and carried on from the pattern line up using plain black,  I used half the stitches for the back and the rest for two thin fronts - I divided for the arm holes and attempted a rounded neck... luck rather then management!  Then once a basic shape of a cardigan emerged, I picked up stitches along the front sides and knitted long ways copying the pattern until I had the width I needed to make the front the right size - this is the first large scale knitting I have done since I put this down 20 years ago so I was a bit rusty on shaping and detail.  I knit both the sleeves at he same time - I think they grow much faster that way and they match, I wasn't sure how the wool would last - I copied the pattern again and made them increase until they fit the arm holes I had created.  I added the waist and neck band and surprisingly it all came together as a wearable cardigan - its a bit nanaish but then again I am a nana!!!  Its almost 100% wool with some mohair and a tiny wee bit of synthetic when I ran out of blue and needed some from my stash... the buttons came from my button tin - I didn't have matching ones so I made 7 different ones from layering different sizes on top of each other so the mismatch perfectly.  Its cosy and warm and another completed project.  It has also rekindled my passion for knitting so I'm looking for a new project!!