Kasha Preview

This week has been, well, interesting, with people I hardly know and who definitely don't know me undermining my abilities to write half a page of text or pretty much to do anything. But, thanks to my grandmother and mother, I will always have knitting and I'm pretty sure those people know next to nothing about that. I have been knitting the beautiful vintage cardigan Kasha and also started, out of a whim, to knit fairisle mittens with a Swedish/Scandinavian wooden horse, dala horse, after this pattern on Raverly. But I am not very far along with those, as I am still very excited about the cardigan. I have knit a sleeve and started the back, but I am sad to tell you that my original idea of having 40's buttons on a 40's cardigan didn't work out as the cardi needs at least seven buttons and I only have four of the old gold ones I had thought of putting on it. But not to worry, I am sure I will find the perfect buttons when I just have the time to go look for them in a button store. Ah, buttons stores are just what a troubled soul needs, aren't they?

Here on the first picture you can see the lace pattern for the cardigan and the second picture features the finished sleeve which you can see hasn't be blocked yet. I used tubular cast-on, which is a technique I first really hated but now am in love with. I guess it's just that having to learn a new technique is a little intimidating, I am afraid of not learning it well enough. But learning the tubular cast-on is really worth it as the result is a beautiful stretchy edge and it really isn't even that hard!

I am really happy with my yarn choice, although to get the correct gauge I have to use 2.5 needles although the original pattern uses 3.25. But I feel no revulsion towards knitting with smaller needles so it really doesn't matter. But I do have a problem: I calculated the yardage based on the original but as the yarn is so different, my calculations are just really, really wrong and I need a lot more yarn! I should go to the store without hesitation to get more while they still have some from the same dye lot but here I am, writing to my blog about it...