Ramona cardigan by Elizabeth Smith. Part 1

It’s that time of year, when the days grow shorter, the air gets nippy and you look forward to spending more time indoors, sitting by the fire or watching TV with a warm blanket over your knees and a knitting project in your hands.

After a summer spent practicing tatting, I felt ready to start on a new knitting project – but which one ? I quit knitting for my kids years ago, I’m a slow knitter and they grow too fast. I also don’t need too many more hats, or scarves. But a cardigan or sweater, not too complicated, and not too easy either sounded like the perfect autumn project. So after many, many hours looking online and in my collection of magazines and books I settled on this cardigan pattern by Elisabeth Smith. It had good reviews and looked like something I would actually use, beside my old favorite cardi is looking rather worst for wear and needs replacing.

So now I’m inviting you to follow along as I knit, and I’ll let you know what I think of the pattern, my choice of wool and  any tips or tricks I pick up along the way.

The pattern is available here on Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ramona-cardigan

The wool suggested is hard to find in Norway, so I settled for Drops Nepal (wool and alpaca mix) in beige 0300, I bought 10 of them, and figured if I didn’t need all then I could always use the rest to knit a hat.

I’m knitting the pattern in size Medium

I was a little eager to start, but then after a couple rows took off everything and started again with a long tail casting, it gives a much neater edge.

Soon after I made a little counting mistake, and had to restart another time. Best tip: don’t start a new project while watching TV… you’ll make most mistakes at the beginning, and need to concentrate a little until you feel familiar with the pattern and how it’s written. 

For those of my readers who live in Norway I will recommend this online shop for buying supplies, the package arrived really fast and the service was excellent: www.garnborsen.no

Almost all the supplies needed, except a set of DPN ( double pointed needles) I had already had in my stash

Already well started.... the pattern is designed for XS -3XL, the orange marks the stitche count I will follow for size M

Here are some helpful youtube videos for the techniques used:

m1-R : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEIOhD6jd1Q&list=PL329hlLfoM6MafdMR-KrQbZZwbGHNcs8M&index=5

m1-L : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXr-7d0im50&list=PL329hlLfoM6MafdMR-KrQbZZwbGHNcs8M&t=98s&index=4

Knitted-on/purled-on CO technique : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f85PYy894dM&list=PL329hlLfoM6MafdMR-KrQbZZwbGHNcs8M&index=7

Longtail cast on : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wUPQDYtoy0&list=PL329hlLfoM6MafdMR-KrQbZZwbGHNcs8M&index=3

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PS: All recommendations are my own preference; I am not sponsored by the designer, websites, manufacturers.