Tag Archives: audrey

Audrey is Done

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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.

Audrey, a cardigan designed by Martin Storey in Rowan Angora Haze, photo by Rowan

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.

Audrey by Martin Storey knit in Rowan Angora Haze by Deborah Cooke
Audrey by Martin Storey knit in Rowan Angora Haze by Deborah Cooke

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!

Audrey, designed by Martin Storey, knit by Deborah Cooke in Rowan Angora Haze

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.

Finishing Audrey

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Rowan Angora Haze

Audrey is a cardigan designed by Martin Storey in Rowan Angora Haze. It was the design featured on the cover of Rowan Angora Haze pattern book (that’s a Ravelry link, since the book is out of print). It’s another project that I cast on very soon after the pattern was published – in the specified yarn – but then lost my mojo. As usual, it was the sleeves that got me. The book is now out of print and the yarn is discontinued.

I started this one in February 2016, and blogged about my progress a couple of times. Knitting Audrey was the first post in 2016, then there was an update in 2019: Navelli, Nightshift and Audrey. I talked about the sleeves in this post about my Navelli.

Audrey by Martin Storey knit in Rowan Angora Haze by Deborah Cooke

I made a few modifications. In the book, the sweater is styled with a ribbon at the neck, like a bed jacket. The collar is actually a casing for the ribbon. I did a regular round collar instead. I omitted the increases in the body – the design is a bit 80’s with the shoulders being wider than the waist. Mine is just boxy.

This was my last progress shot of the sleeves:

Audrey by Martin Storey knit in Rowan Angora Haze by Deborah Cooke

And that’s pretty much where I stopped cold. I had a feeling the sleeves were too wide, so put the project aside to think about that. I took it out in January when my Starling Wrap was done and knew I was right. 5.5″ into the sleeves, they were 12.5″ wide, even though I was making the smallest size. So (sigh) I frogged the sleeves and cast on again. This pattern has a couple rows of garter stitch at the cast-on edge, then increases in R4. This time, I didn’t do the increases, but just switched to the larger needles and started the cable pattern. What a difference that made!

Here you can see the new sleeve, which is knit to the underarm. (Yup. There I go, tossing my knitting into the snow again. The light is so much better outside right not.)

sleeve for Audrey, designed by Martin Storey, knit by Deborah Cooke in Rowan Angora Haze

I’m much happier with these proportions – the top of my new sleeve is about the same width as I’d reached in a few inches, following the pattern directions. Now I need to figure out the sleeve cap since my stitch count is much lower. I’ve ended on the same row of the pattern repeat as for the body of the cardigan, so the pattern will line up. It’s just a case of working out the decreases. I have a plan, and we’ll see how it goes – I’ll put in a lifeline, just in case.

Knitting Audrey

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My big plan was to finish up the projects that are already on my needles this year, and I am making progress on that. I’m in the midst of knitting the last square for the ugliest afghan in the world, for example, which will then just need to be sewn together (ugh. The sewing is about half done) and have the border knit onto it. The border is about 1/3 done. It is, though, the ugliest afghan in the world, and not a project that fosters a lot of enthusiasm. It might be warm when it’s done. It’s destined to go in the car to keep the dog claws off the upholstery, which again, isn’t very inspiring.

So, I needed another project to keep me from losing hope completely. The winner was Audrey, a lace and cables cardigan knit in Rowan Angora Haze and included in the Rowan Angora Haze pattern book. This yarn was discontinued and replaced by Rowan Mohair Haze, so I bought two sweater lots of AH when it was discounted to clear. It was time to get one fuzzy sweater on the needles. Here, btw, is the Ravelry link for Audrey, and also the one for Angora Haze. It’s still out there in discount bins all over the world.

The yarn is really soft and fuzzy. It does shed a bit but not as much as I expected. It’ll be interesting to see whether it sheds more or less once the garment is completed. My nose does tickle a bit after I’ve been knitting on it, but again, it’s not too bad. I did try a suggestion I saw on a Ravelry forum – I put a white linen tea towel on my lap when knitting this sweater. It gives nice contrast for those dark stitches and also catches any shedding hairs. I wrap the knitting in the tea towel when I’m not working on it.

Of course, my yarn is deep purple. 🙂 Here’s the left front so far:Audrey by Martin Storey knit in Rowan Angora Haze by Deborah Cooke

This shot was taken with the flash – the colour isn’t as rich as it is in real life, but you can see the cables better.

The cable pattern is actually easy to memorize, which surprised me. It’s certainly not a television knit, but it’s not that complicated. I knit the left front first, because I’ve had sizing issues lately with Rowan patterns. A lot of them turn out big, and I didn’t want to knit these cables over and over again. I knit a size smaller than I thought I should, and it’s coming out perfectly. The fabric is a little bit stretchy, and I guess it’s acting like a rib. Although the left front laid flat is 10″ wide, as it should be, I can easily smooth it to be 12″ wide. I’m glad I didn’t knit a bigger size, as it might get sloppy in the wearing. I doubt this yarn has a lot of elasticity – it’s just too soft for that.

I’ve made the front 2″ longer because I don’t want it to be as cropped. Also, I’ve eliminated the increases between waist and bust, and just knit it straight. That means I had to modify the decreases for the armscye (since I had fewer stitches overall) but that wasn’t a big deal. I won’t make the rolled collar but just a regular one with a buttonhole, and it seems to me that the sleeves are a bit too wide. I’ll double check those counts and measurements before knitting them.

Naturally, knitting one of the fronts first has left me with a dilemma. I’m going to have to put it aside unfinished and knit the back before I can continue. Rowan patterns often have an instruction like the one in the pattern “knit the front until it is 26 rows shorter than the finished back”. Aha. (I have another sweater on the needles that’s in time-out because of this. I have knit the back on that one, but since I substituted a different yarn, my row gauge is off. I need to figure out whether the specified number of rows will make the collar too deep or not. Knitting math tends not to get done, so that sweater front has been waiting patiently in my basket since November.) This weekend, the left front of Audrey is going onto a stitch holder and I’ll cast on the back.

What do you think?