Made by Me: Pebble Cardigan

I've had some issues with this stitching project, and at the weekend it was relegated (completed apart from all the ends being sewn in) to the spare room as it had angered me!

However, with some calm thinking and a little work the issues have disappeared and she is now my new favourite...... until the next one comes along!



The pattern is the Pebble Cardigan, by Nancy Eiseman, which can be found here on Ravelry.

The issues were not due to the pattern at all, which is lovely.  In fact I'm not sure what they were due to, but whatever it was caused the finished cardigan to twist so that one front edge was longer than the other, and the whole garment seemed to hang to one side.  The cardigan is knitted in one piece from the top down, so there are no side seams to help things hang correctly.

You can see the difference in length here - at this stage I thought it was the circular needle pulling things out of shape.

After ranting and moaning, and counting several time to make sure I'd picked up the same number of stitches for each front band (I had - 81 each side), I did the sensible thing and gave it a good bath and laid it out flat to block dry, carefully shaping it all into place. 

Then I got on Ebay and found some pretty striped grosgrain ribbon to stitch along the button and buttonhole bands to prevent them from stretching again (or whatever they'd done!).

Stitching it to the button band was easy, measure the length, pin carefully and sew neatly in place. 



However, the buttonhole band was a bit more tricky - how to cope with the buttonholes?  I debated several solutions, but in the end I measured (several times) and marked out positions for buttonholes on the grosgrain and made them on my sewing machine.  Then I lined everything up with the buttonholes on the knitted band and stitched in place.  I had to sew a few stitches around each buttonhole (which I'd hoped not to have to do) as the different coloured stripes showed through onto the front side of the cardigan.

Yesterday morning it even stopped raining long enough (and the sun came out for a few minutes) so that I was able to get into the garden and snap a few photos. 


Worn here with the denim skirt I made at the weekend!

6 comments

  1. Wow that cardigan looks absolutely fabulous on you and it is matched so well with your denim skirt. Congratulations, well done!

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  2. It looks fantastic! your ribbon solution was perfect and clever, well done!

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    1. Thanks Julie! I was relieved that it worked!

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  3. That is a lovely cardigan,is it cotton? Cotton yarn has a mind of it's own and stretches with no provocation at all!

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    1. Thanks so much. It's a cotton/rayon blend, so I think it's going to require regular attention to keep it looking nice!

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