In the Spring, A Young Girl's Fancy Turns to Cardigans

I finished my Mirabella cardigan! You know, I loved this cardigan from the moment I saw it on the IK preview website. In fact, I bought the yarn for it even before the magazine came out. And when I finally got my hands on the Spring issue of IK, I was not disappointed! Kudos to Jennifer Tallapaneni for a beautifully constructed and well-thought-out pattern. Jennifer includes great details--a knitted hem, needle size changes for additional subtle waist shaping, slipped stitch "darts", a double-knit collar, and crocheted buttonband. I had never done double knitting before, and for the first few rows, I was just blindly following the directions. Then suddenly, it began to make sense! When I finally was able to grasp the topology of it, I saw just how clever double knitting is, and this project was the perfect little introduction. As for the buttonband and button loops, I was very nervous about doing these since I am really, really bad at crochet. To be completely honest, I'm not sure I even did them right, but I like how they turned out anyway and will probably come back to this way of doing them again. More details are in the gallery.

Because I'm still in a cardigan mood, I have bought some Berroco Comfort for Currer and some Hempathy for this Lacy Leaf Cardi. I'll keep you posted, of course!