Pattern: Rönn by The Weststrand Sisters
Yarn: 5 skeins of The Fibre Co. Cumbria (now on sale)
Size made: 3rd
Modifications: I used a different technique to create the bobbles.
Sometimes a pattern calls to you, the yarn falls into your hands and somehow you find yourself casting on without a second thought to the other things on your needles, or the current weather! We featured this cardigan in our May Pattern Round Up and I had swatched and cast on within the week. It felt completely out of season, most of the knitting was done while it blazed 18 – 25 degrees (that’s blazing in my book!) outside but I couldn’t resist the boxy 80s throwback and the cute bobbles kept me coming back.
The yarn is The Fibre Co. Cumbria in the colour Buttermere. It was really lovely to work with. The three fibres which make up this yarn, merino, masham, and mohair work together so well. It’s soft and the mohair gives it a subtle fluffy halo which adds perfectly to the 80s look. I got gauge with 4.50 mm needles rather than the 4.00 mm recommend. Looking at the other Ravelry projects several other people did the same.
Super boxy, this cardigan has no shaping in the body at all making it a very straight forward knit. Worked from the bottom up, you graft the shoulders together, pick up and knit the sleeves down, pick up and knit the button/neck band, work an i-cord bind off and that’s it! The biggest complication are the bobbles. I know some people have strong opinions on bobbles but I think they’re little pops of joy. My favourite thing about the shape of this cardigan is the neck line. The back neck is taken nice and high, something unfortunately rare in most patterns, so no cold neck – my pet peeve. For this reason I will definitely be looking at their other patterns!
The technique used in the pattern is the simplest way of knitting bobbles. You knit front and back into the same stitch however many times the pattern call for (in my case 5 times), on the way back you purl the 5 stitches together. I found the bobbles, obviously bobbles but they weren’t quite as stand out as I was expecting. Eugenie is also working on a bobbled project, a shawl by Beata Jezeg. I mentioned at knit night that I wasn’t wholly satisfied with my bobbles and it turned out we were using 2 different techniques. The only difference being she was moving the stitches back to the left needle and knitting them through the back loop. This extra step pushes the bobble out just that little bit more, making a much more satisfactory bobble! I wasn’t going to rip back to the beginning so the first half of my cardigan is has flatter bobbles and the second half has nice pronounced ones.
Eugenie has written a whole post about the blessed bobble or nupp, including several videos of the different techniques.
All in all this was a very enjoyable knit and I won’t wish for it just yet, but I can’t wait to be able to wear it!
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