King Cole Cardigan in Opium Leaf: the back

May 13, 2014 by Elaine 4 Comments

It grew and it grew and it grew. In fact I kept having to remeasure the length of my knitting, to check I wasn’t having a senior moment and had misread the tape measure the first dozen or so times. I hadn’t! The back still wasn’t long enough for me to start the decreases for the armholes even if it did look like I was knitting for the BFG. So I kept on knitting, finally reaching the start of the armholes at 55cm and by the time I had cast off the last of the neck stitches, the back measured 77cm.

If you read my initial post in regards this top for Eldest Mudlet, then you will be aware that whilst she had liked the look of the short sleeved cardigan (requiring two 100g balls of yarn according to the pattern), my first born child had preferred the length of the sleeveless waistcoat (three balls of yarn for her size) and so I had purchased the extra ball and was combining the two to make her ideal garment which meant 55cm to the armhole and not 39cm. It just looks huge.

The yarn has knitted up really well and formed it’s own regular pattern up to the decreased width of the armhole section but, oddly enough, even here the yarn appears to have continued in pattern, albeit a different one and so the back section looks far more uniform than I was expecting. It remains to be seen how the front sections knit up in comparison.

I was still using the first ball of yarn as I was approaching the cast off section, and I began to wonder if it was going to last long enough to finish the whole piece. With 6 rows plus the cast off row to complete, I began the decreases for the shoulders:

29 stitches left to go!!!

5 stitches were cast off at the beginning of each of the first two rows – 50 stitches left and still there was yarn to work with;
6 stitches went at the beginning of each of the next two rows and with 38 stitches left, still there was yarn but would it be enough; and
6 stitches went at the beginning of each of the last two rows, leaving 26 on the needle …….. and with just 3 stitches left to knit on the second of these rows, the yarn ran out!

Yes, with only these last 3 stitches and then the 26 on the cast off row left to knit, I had to join a second ball of yarn to the knitting – 29 stitches short!!! How frustrating. I suppose I could have pulled these last few rows back and started the shoulder decreases two rows earlier but it was fast approaching midnight and I was tired and I really wanted to finish the piece, so I didn’t. I joined the yarn and completed those last 29 stitches.