New Year's Resolution Underway

Every year my New Year's Resolution is to finish all my current knitting projects before starting any new ones - so I'm really pleased that this year my resolution is already underway. Today I finished this cardigan, which I started back in the autumn. It's my version of the 'Tweed Cardigan' from Henry Conway and Gail Downey's Weardowney Knit Couture (2007).

I started this cardigan because I had a lot of single balls of Rowan's 'Felted Tweed' yarn in shades of blue and green that I didn't know what to do with. I'd originally bought the yarn to make a Rowan fair-isle tank-top but quickly realised that a multi-coloured fair-isle design using hairy yarn like 'Felted Tweed' becomes a tangled mess. Having spent too many hours trying to untangle it all, I decided to give it up.

So back in October, I decided to have a go at an ombre effect with the left-over yarn. I enjoyed knitting the Weardowney pattern, which is more complex than it first appears. It has some interesting details that are not shown in the few photos included in the book - such as the moss stitch shoulder panels and the panelled back.  I've made a couple of minor changes to the pattern too - I've only used three pairs of buttons and used i-cord for the closures (which I hand-felted to give them a bit more structure). 

The buttons are from Duttons for Buttons, which I bought on a lovely weekend in York with Kirsty and Rhian.

Overall, I think I like it.

And my thanks, as always, to Ellie for her help and support!