The Impulse Control Cardigan

Five years ago, I made my last impulse purchase of yarn. My rule now is that I only buy what I specifically need for planned projects, and I'm also trying to move to basing project plans on need, or at least on using up materials I have on hand, rather than on pure whim. Meanwhile, for the entire past five years, my last impulse purchase has served as a wholesome reminder of why I needed such policies.

While spending Christmas with family in Listowel, Ontario, in December 2012, I visited Spinrite yarn's factory outlet and purchased some Patons Decor yarn in a shade called "Rose Temptation", or what I would describe as a dusty rose, as well as some ivory lace weight angora mohair, with the idea that I'd make a dusty rose cardigan with a fair isle pattern on it in the angora mohair, used double. I didn't have a pattern chosen, and estimated the amount I would need. I began the sweater almost immediately, improvising the design with the help of a couple of different patterns, and nearly finished it before I realized I wasn't satisfied with it, that I hadn't shaped the neck right in the front and that the shawl collar consequently wasn't going to sit right. I also hated the thought of having to handwash the cardigan as I would have had to do, due to the presence of the angora mohair. The failed project sat around for a year or two. In November 2014, I ripped out the first design and purchased another cardigan pattern, this one being a garter stitch and cabled trimmed project that was knitted from side to side in only the dusty rose yarn. I got a front piece, a sleeve, and part of the back finished before I ran into difficulties with it as well, and put it aside. It wasn't until this past month that I got back to it, and I realized that not only were there technical and fit problems with my work, but that I didn't like it -- the loose garter stitch required by the pattern was too loose for my liking and looked messy. I ripped the sweater out again and searched Ravelry for a third worsted weight cardigan pattern. It had to be a cardigan because hey, I'd bought buttons.

After some browsing, I found the Forestry or Old Penny Cardigan design, created by Veronik Avery. It's a nice pattern, but so were a number of others that I found. This one won out because I already had the pattern, as I owned a copy of the Vogue Knitting Fall 2008 issue that it was in.

And here's the sweater. Though I finished this third design, it wasn't all smooth sailing either, as the pattern was poorly edited. I had finished the pieces, blocked them, seamed them together, and was picking up the stitches for the collar/button band ribbing when I found a discrepancy in the instructions. I checked the errata on the Vogue Knitting site only to find that there was another mistake in the left front instructions that I hadn't noticed. (I also found some muddled places in the instructions that weren't noted in the errata.) I had to take apart the seams that held the left front piece and reknit almost the whole piece, which is why I didn't manage to finish this project by the end of 2017 as I had planned. From now on I'll be checking Ravelry pattern pages for errata before I begin a new project.

I made just one modification to this sweater, which was to add buttonholes and use buttons instead of snaps as in the sample knit. I am pleased with the design and how it turned out and I am sure I will get plenty of wear out of this attractive and sensible cardigan.

But whenever I'm tempted to buy yarn on impulse, I will remember this project: how the design idea I came up with on the spot didn't work, how I didn't need the sweater and took years to finish it, how I had nearly 200 grams of yarn left when I finally finished it that I couldn't return.

I'm going to count this yarn as stash yarn since it was bought so long ago. This project used up 500 grams of stash yarn.