Ashley’s Adventures in Knitting: Udina KAL

If you haven’t heard, our latest knit-along started this week featuring our new free pattern, Udina. This beautiful sweater – designed by the one and only Norah Gaughan – features an interesting new cable pattern that  requires two cable needles for one of the stitches. Luckily, it only sounds hard!

Watch Emily’s How-To Video:

Typically, we ask for knit-along suggestions, but we didn’t have to this time – we just knew Udina would be a big hit. It’s knit in the round from the top-down in our Vintage yarn but you can easily substitute Berroco Comfort (easy care and great for wool allergies) or Berroco Weekend (perfect for warmer weather). I chose to stick with Vintage for my Udina which I’m knitting in the pinkish-purple Dewberry colorway.

 Join our KAL: http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/berroco-lovers/2845853

I wasn’t sure where it was going when I knit those first flat rows – Norah always keeping me on my toes with her interesting constructions! After the joining row, it feel like I’ve really picked up the pace (which makes no sense because I’m continually increasing)! I think I’m always more confident when I see a sweater start to take shape.

Of course, I did create a bit of confusion for myself with the first increase round. Partly because I added markers on either side of the cable, and mostly because I was knitting late at night and not at full brain power, I ended up with 10 new stitches instead of 8. I had mistakenly increased on the outside of the markers I’d placed for the cable panel. I did get to a point in the round where I knew I had made more increases than the instructions called for but I decided to keep going so my increases would be even. What can I say, I’m stubborn. At least, I had the good sense to then put it away and go to bed. When I re-read the increase round the next morning, I realized my mistake – time to frog! If you haven’t gotten there yet, make sure you only add increases on either side of each shoulder (8 increase per round).

CORRECTIONS

I also wanted to point out and apologize for the two errors in the first copy of the Udina PDF.  We’ve added a revised copy to our website, but, if you downloaded it right away, here are the changes:

If you looked at the explanation of the blue cable stitch in the chart, you may have noticed that a K3 was missing…

and you wouldn’t want to forget to add finishing around the neck (even though we forgot to add the finishing instructions in our first PDF…whoops!).

One other thing I thought I’d share…I took a few pictures of myself modeling our sample Udina (size S) to show the fit. More often than not, I knit the XS size because I like a more fitted look and yarn tends to stretch. I’m really glad I got to try on this sample because this one is actually a bit too tight on my shoulders. Maybe I’m weird, but sometimes I like to move my arms! Since it’s knit top-down, I’m planning to add an extra increase or two to give my arms some wiggle room. I also noticed that hips are bit too high and wide for me – this is pretty common because I had a longer torso. I’ll definitely be trying it on as I go and adjust to get the right fit. I’ll share any modifications I make on my Ravelry project page.

Hope this helps with your Udina! Happy Knitting!