Kathy's New Cardigan

During the summer, my sister Kathy came to visit and brought about 5 pullover sweaters that she wanted me to convert to cardigans.  She said she liked what I did for the Unbiased Cardi back in March.  I assume she wanted these for the upcoming fall and winter months (she lives in MA).  I also thought: It's still summer, I have plenty of time to get to them.

Well, here we are, November, and I have not worked on any of them!  Ugh, I always do this.  So, I am currently in MA now visiting the family for Thanksgiving, and I really had to get a move on with at least one of them.  Here is what I did for a v-neck green cabled pullover from Old Navy:

As you can see, she used to roll the sleeves.  I know this because there were dents at the arms, and I also tried it on and we are similar sizes, and it was too long for me.  So, you know I had to take my new skill and shorten the sleeves, like I did in Pink Cashmere. 

Basically, I snipped one stitch about where I wanted to add onto, and unraveled and detached the cuff of the sleeve.  I then unraveled it and with that very yarn, reknit a cuff.

Last time, I used straight needles to do this and then seamed up the arm again, this time I tried using double points so that I can knit in the round and not have to worry about seaming.  It worked great.

This is how much I shortened the sleeve.  That's a lot, huh?  I did the same to the other sleeve and then seamed up the small hole that remained from opening up the sleeve to unravel.

Alright, here comes the "cardigan" part.  Since there was a centrally placed cable, I simple cut up the middle of the cable.

Before I cut, with a sewing machine I stitched stitches on either side of where I was going to cut, just to hold the stitches in place so that they do not unravel as I'm trying to work with it later.  Then I cut.

So, it was cut all the way up.

I pinned the edges in.  I intended on sewing right down the middle of this cable half.

Next, I went out and bought toggle buttons.  This is a perfect sweater for toggle buttons! 

With the yarn that was left over from unraveling, I made loops.

I cut three strands and braided them.  I made a total of 4 loops.

I stitched the toggle buttons to one side and lined up the cables and figured out where the loops would go.  I poked through the ends of the braided loop and knotted them together on the back side.

I then trimmed the long strands.

Ladies and Gentlemen:  I am done!  Above and below is my sister modeling the new cardigan.

It fit her so well!  The length of the sleeves were just right.  She also just got her hair cut, so it was so sassy to have her new 'do with the new cardi.

I love it and she did, too!  She told me later that she wanted to ask me about all the sweaters that she left with me.  I'm sure glad that I was able to deliver at least one to her.  Although, not sure how long this one can keep her at bay from wanting the other ones.

Last thing, since I am on vacation in MA, freezing my butt off in 32-40 degree weather (FL is still in the 70's), I'm not sure if next week's blog will get written.  Just saying....

Pink Cashmere

Earlier this month, we had a yard sale.  The whole Fishhawk Ranch community had one.  So you can put your stuff out, sell some of it, and then go around and buy other people's stuff.  Ha.

Anyway, Vince always goes around and I don't.  This time, my friend Cathy came over and we worked the yard sale for several hours, then put Vince in charge for a bit.

We went to one where I bought a pretty pink Anne Klein 100% cashmere sweater for $2.  I later saw that the back of the lower arm had a tiny food stain on it.  No big deal, the sleeves were too long (as usual) so I wanted to try shortening them.  This is going to be called my:

"$2 Experiment"

I read that this is possible, but have not officially tried it myself.  I am going to attempt to unravel the sweater sleeve and pick-up the live stitches on my straight knitting needles and knitting with the unraveled yarn, a new edging.  I tried it on to see how long the sleeves really were.

It was / still is a pretty sweater:

I first measured the sleeve length and figured I would want it about 7" shorter.

I then opened the sleeve at the seam.  I then made a cut a little lower than where I wanted the new edging to be.  I cut one strand along the edging.  I held my breath; I really didn't know what I was doing.  And then to be doing it on a nice cashmere sweater.  I must be nuts!

The one cut allowed be to unhook this end of the strand from each loop by pulling gently at each stitch until I made it across the row.  The bottom of the sleeve has been separated from the rest of the sweater.

In the above pic, I have already started to unwind the lower portion of the sleeve and ball it up.  Yes, that ball of yarn is the bottom portion of the sleeve.  Cool, huh?

That pic also shows the rest of the sleeve, if you look closely, you can see the loops of the live stitches.  These are the loops that I will pick-up on my straight needles.  I chose a size 2 needle, because this was a fine knit sweater, so I estimated the needle size.

The live loops have been picked-up.  This was not as bad as I thought it would be; the stitches stayed open so I could easily insert the tip of the needle through them.  I made sure that the strand that I took out was near the last stitch I picked-up.  I need that to make sure I'm on the correct side. 

I then took that ball of yarn that I wound from the bottom portion of the sweater and did 1 purl row and then 3 rows of k1, p1 ribbing edge.  I then bound off.

I seamed the sleeve back up and it was done!  

It worked!

I was so stoked that I did not ruin the sweater.  I was getting nervous while I was unraveling that first row to separate the sleeve from the sweater.  I repeated this for the other sleeve.

I now have two small balls of cashmere yarn to do with as I please.  How nice!

Here is me modeling how lovely this sweater fits now.

I have another sweater to do this with.  I bought that a while back and now feel the confidence to go ahead an try this technique on it.  Another set of close-ups of the sleeve edging.

I love it!  I'm going to do this to everything now.  A long sleeve will not prevent me from buying a garment now.  Awesome!