Beginning Miette

I posted about my struggles with knitting in a post last week. I am again attempting to knit the Miette Cardigan by Andi Satterlund following on from my previous failed version.

My yarn arrived last Monday. This time I will be using Cascade 220 in Azala, which is the closest match to the recommended yarn for the pattern, Cascase Sierra, that I could find. This is a worsted weight yarn and so knits up differently to the DK I had previously been using.

The first thing I needed to do once my yarn had arrived, is wind the skeins into balls. I had previously read somewhere about the danger of knitting directly from a skein as it gets all tangled. I followed this handy tutorial by Not So Granny. It was easy to do but very time consuming, so I only wound the one skein- when I run out I'll wind another.

My mistake with my previous Miette was using the wrong yarn, which would have been glaringly obvious if I had knitted a swatch. Having truly learnt my lesson, my first step in this project was to knit a tension swatch. The pattern calls for 16 stitches and 22 rows across a 10 cm square, however Cascade 220 has a slightly larger tension of 18-20 stitches across 10 cm.

I cast on 30 stitches and continued until my swatch was about 12 cm in length. After measuring I found that I had 20 stitches and 26 rows in my 10 cm square - too big for the pattern and my cardigan would have been too big. After consulting with a knitting friend, she recommended knitting another tension square using a smaller needle. I used a 4.5 mm needle and made a smaller swatch, which measured 21 stitches - only slightly smaller. I decided it wasn't worth going down in the needle size and so am knitting the smallest version with a bust size of 32". Hopefully this should give me the correct fit,

So far, I have cast on and have completed the first 7 rows. I have pledged to myself that I will do a little bit of knitting every day, even if it is just 1 or 2 rows. My aim is to complete the cardigan ready for our holiday to Spain at the end of November.