The short jacket

For ages I have had a problem on days when it is a little cool in the summer. I have two great short linen jackets but none of my cardigans can be worn with them, as the cardigans  'show' by about 3 cm under the jacket! So I can decide to wear a cardigan or wear a jacket!  About 2 weeks ago I decided to do something about it and knit a cardigan that would fit under the jackets. The joy of doing this with the help of the knitting machine is that I can decide what I want and then achieve it in a fairly short time.

The jacket sleeves are 3/4 and I decided to knit a long sleeve cardigan - much more use but to make the sleeves interesting by adding a lace edging.
This is the lace edging I designed for another item (might make a blog post later!) so sampled this :

It looks good and I already have a longer cardigan in the same yarn ( 2 strands of Metropolitan fine crepe). I love this cardigan but decided also to reduce the width of the scarf/collar so it would sit under the jacket better.

So this is the story.
It didn't take long to do the actual knitting - I didn't time it but did it over a few days on my vintage Brother 830. It looks pretty grim when it is taken off the knitting machine.

So next for the blocking and I estimate that I took well over half the time to block that I do to knit. I have a pattern of each piece so block onto the pattern piece using my custom made blocking board.

Before the blocking

After the blocking

The seams were stitched with a tiny zigzag on my Janome sewing machine except for the beginning and end  of the seams that I always do by hand.

So the cardigan is constructed but not yet finished. I am a strong believer in ' details are what count' so I have edged the bottom of the sleeves and the bottom of the cardigan in crab stitch. This is VERY time consuming, longer than the knitting and spread over 3 days. Good light is essential but I just love the finished edge.

Crab stitch round the edging. This is much more professional.

The lace at the sleeve edging



The completed jacket.  Another great item for the wardrobe.

My only wish is that I had done this month's if not years ago!