I hope you all had a lovely weekend!
Today’s Stitchcraft freebie is a cardigan that I’m currently in the middle of knitting up. You may recognize it from my fall project board (which I’m slowly, but surely plugging through on.)
I’m just about done with the back bodice, so once I’m 100% done with it, I’ll be able to provide all of my modifications for you all and give a proper review.
This cardigan is from the 1942 May edition of Stitchcraft magazine (same edition as the cherry ripe jumper)
Pdf link to download the Basque Cardigan Pattern: A Basque to Your Cardigan.
Click here to add this pattern to your Ravelry Queue or Favorites.
The first thing I had to do with this pattern was to look up what ‘basque’ meant.
It means:
“A short extension below the waist to the bodice of a woman’s jacket, etc.”
or “A tight-fitting bodice for women”.
Ahh, this makes perfect sense now… Yes, it is close-fitting and the fit of this cardigan extends beyond the waist. This is one of the things I love most about this cardigan: It’s long enough to wear with non-high-waisted skirts and trousers.
I had a bit of trouble getting started on this particular pattern since my gauge was quite different than the gauge provided on the pattern. Using a fingering weight yarn, the gauge is 7.5 sts per inch measured over the rib pattern (K2, P1) using US size 5 needles. This is huge!
Normally for my fingering weight yarn I would never dream of working with anything larger than a US size 3 needle, since there would be lots of holes in my knitting. So can you imagine using 2 sizes larger?! I started doing my gauge with US size 4 needles and didn’t like the look of it, as I anticipated. I went down to 3’s, then I decided to go down further to my standard size 2’s. And guess what?! I got the same exact gauge as the pattern calls for using a US size 2 needle, not the US size 5 that was initially given. ( I’m wondering if this was a typo…)
The bottom basque and the neckband area is knit in a moss stitch pattern, using a boucle yarn. I didn’t find the right weight/color to match with my main yarn so I decided to incorporate a silk mohair yarn in with my wool fingering weight yarn just for the moss section.
Here’s my back piece so far:
(Sorry it’s a bit blurry).
The color isn’t quite the true color of my cardigan, instead of being Cherry-red, mine is more of a blood red/burgundy.
The rib pattern is quite forgiving; there isn’t any waist or hip shaping since the expanding and contracting rib stitch will accommodate for most curves. –>Perfect for beginners!!!
I can already tell that my cardigan looks quite on the long side, but I measured it next to my favorite hoodie and the length will be perfect once it’s all completed.
I’m not planning on doing any major alterations, but I am leaning towards knitting long sleeves on this cardigan instead of the elbow-length sleeves its shown in. I want to wear this during the winter, and while I don’t care for a long-sleeve in a ribbed pattern, I think it will be more practical and I would get a lot more use out of it.
If anyone finds that they want to knit this cardigan also, feel free to ask me any questions about it since I’m knee-deep in it.
And as always, feel free to comment if there’s a particular type of pattern you’d like to see me post up. If no one has anything they’d like to see, I’m thinking about adding in some 40’s fair isle patterns. Yay or Nay?
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