This year, I have a plan to finish up some of the projects that are on my needles. Some of them have been waiting for my attention for a while. (Sleeve Island is a precarious location for me. Sweaters can be marooned there for years!) I had a look through all the project bags at the first of the year and chose this one to finish up first.
Audrey is a cardigan designed by Martin Storey in Rowan Angora Haze. It’s on the cover of the pattern book, Rowan Angora Haze, which is now discontinued. (That’s a Ravelry link for the pattern book.) The yarn is also discontinued. Here’s the Ravelry link for Rowan Angora Haze yarn and here’s the Ravelry link for Audrey.
It’s a pretty cardigan in a very fuzzy soft yarn. I’ve blogged about this one before, since it’s been SEVEN years since I cast it on. Gah. It’s ten years since I bought the yarn and the pattern, which means it aged in the stash even before I cast on. (This little summary and a birthday on the horizon makes me give my stash a side-eye.)
Let’s look at those blog posts before we explore the why of the timeline. Here’s the first one, and there’s a mention of my Audrey in this post, then here’s the most recent post about (ha) the plan to finish it, dating from two years ago.
The big issue with this knit was that I didn’t like the shape of the sweater as designed. It’s kind of an 80’s shape, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, an inverted triangle. I didn’t originally realize that from the pictures – I saw it in the schematics and instructions. As a pear-shaped individual myself, I knew this wouldn’t work. I eliminated the increases in the upper body, which then meant that the armhole decreases and the shoulder cap had to be recalculated. I also changed the neck, so that there’s another button there instead of a ribbon threaded through a casing. Then I discovered that the sleeve instructions made a sleeve that was far wider than I wanted, so I frogged the sleeves back and started them again. Finally, the dark fuzzy wool was tough to read in the cable and eyelet pattern. This wasn’t television knitting at all, even though I soon memorized the pattern stitch.
This project was castaway on Sleeve Island twice – once for the recalculation of the sleeve cap and once for ennui – as well as having an earlier time-out or two. The yarn shed like mad at first, even after being put in the freezer (that’s an old tip for sheddy yarn) but when I picked it up this last time, it seemed to be shedding less. That’s a good sign for actually wearing the sweater and not having everything I own covered in purple fuzz.
Here are some in-progress pix of the body of the sweater from those older posts, one with a test button. I’m going with those faceted clear ones – they’re pretty but not too fussy. A plain button wouldn’t be right with this sweater IMO.
Now it’s done (finally!) and I love it. It’s very soft and fits exactly as I’d planned (yay), and oh, it’s warm!
And here it is FINISHED!
I bought 12 balls of yarn and used almost 10.5 of them, which means the sweater took 1438 m or 1573 yards. (I don’t even want to think about how many of them I knit twice.) Here’s my Ravelry project page.
If I knit it again (not a chance!) I’d make the armhole a little more shallow, maybe even an inch. I’d add that length into the body so the sweater overall was the same length. I bought 12 balls of black Angora Haze way back in 2013, enough to make this sweater, but I think I’ll knit it into something more plain than this cardigan.
Alive & Knitting 
Very impressive; both the finished sweater and that you kept at it.
LOL – yes, I’m a bit stubborn like that!
thanks!
I thought I was the only one? The only one with a WIP that has sat well over a decade, as in my case. I have a beautiful Alice Starmore sweater I started ages ago and never finished. I’m not sure why … I think I was afraid I was going to run out of yarn, so I set it aside and let things slide. Now I’m not so sure I’m short on yarn, but it’s been so very long …. Maybe some day I’ll get brave and try to finish it. I saved all my working notes, so it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out where I left off. Nice job on the cardigan. It really is awfully pretty.
Not the only one or the only project. Audrey has friends who are still in my knitting basket. I have more to finish up. (Several are getting a hard review, i.e. do I want to finish them at all or frog them and return the yarn to the stash?? Tough call sometimes.)
Ooo, finish the Starmore sweater and show it off! I love her designs.
d
It’s a really, really early pattern. 1993, to be exact. I had only been knitting a year or two at that point, but I had great LYS support so I jumped in big. I made several of the early Starmore sweaters and bought almost all of her early books and publications. It’s a bit horrifying to see what those books sell for now on Amazon or other rare book sites. I should finish it if only because it’s such a great tribute to the past.
You should! I have several Starmore books and they’re beautiful. I’ve never knit one, though. I guess I was in my Kaffe Fassett phase around then – the Chinese coat almost finished me, and then I wore it maybe twice. I bought a Bohus cardigan kit in 2016 and have only knit half of the yoke – dreading the miles of stockinette after that – and should finish it before even thinking about a Starmore.
I saw on your blog that you got your stash onto Ravelry. Such a huge endeavor to document it all, but so worth it. I shop my stash all the time there.
d
My former LYS was actually the source of my early knitting education and exposure. (It closed some time during my knititng hiatus, which itself lasted a bit over two decades) So what was popular at the shop was pretty much what I wanted to learn how to knit. They had a huge Kaffe Fassett following, but the fact that I live on a farm meant most of those designs were just a bit too … frou-frou for me. (Yes, they look great in farm settings in all the books, but I quickly learned that after all that hard work and expense, my farm is the LAST place I’d want to wear something that nice) I actually started my sweater knitting journey with guernsey and gansey sweaters. I liked their “workhorse” style, and I graduated to Starmore from there.
The LYS often had a yearly Starmore trunk show and for some strange reason, most of the sweaters Alice sent with the show fit me perfectly. So her patterns were kind of an easy choice. (She also did an in-person workshop there, but I wasn’t an experienced enough knitter at the time to attend) I’ve long since gone through menopause and most of those heavier style patterns are just too much warmth for me, so my desire to knit a Starmore sweater has gone from eager to slim to none. Her newer styles do nothing for me. Interesting, yes, but functional? Not at all. I applaud her creativity, but she’s stepped a little too far out of the box for my taste. She was one of the first designers I looked up when I got back into knitting recently and I was a little surprised at all the changes she’s been through.
I’ve logged about 99.9% of my stash. Holy cow, was that a big endeavor! I hoped seeing it right in front of me would help curb my impulse to buy more yarn, but sadly that’s not true at all. In fact, I bought more yarn last week. Oh well! It’s a helpful feature to have and I like using it.