Diamond Cardigan

The coincidence of getting “French Girl Knits” in the mail the same day I had lunch with a friend wearing a marvelous cabled sweater instigated this sweater. I wanted to use my stash of lovely blue Reynolds Andean Alpaca Regal yarn( which I had used for the mittens and had 8 skeins left!) , and Kristeen Griffin-Grimess' top down, set-in-sleeve pattern “Viola” was so well written that it just flowed together. I used the “X-in-a-diamond” single cable from Barbara Walker’s First Treasury (pg 287) to give added texture, and also made long sleeves. As I knit a different yarn at a tighter gauge ( 16 per inch on a size 9 needle) than the pattern was written for, I used the numbers for the 44 inch size. I am very happy with this cardigan, although I think the zipper is a bit too long and may re-do it when the mood hits me. It is warm and soft and has the right shade of blue.

Plus, it went very fast! I watched "John Adams" and a few other shows and it was done in 2 weeks!