Little details on my Secret Garden cardi

I have been working pretty much exclusively on my The Secret Garden cardigan lately and have just finished the last increase round for the yoke. I’m hoping to have a “try-on” session tomorrow if I can get through the last part of the yoke colorwork tonight at my Monday night knitting meet-up.

If you look at the image above that I took from the pattern’s Ravelry page, you’ll notice that there is another bang of the leaf motif after the main colorwork chart. Once I finish the main chart (it ends after the piano key-looking motif on the sample photo) I’ll try it on to see if I want to split for sleeves before I start the final leaf motif, or if I want more yoke depth before splitting, in which case I’ll add the leaf motif before the split. As I mentioned in my previous post, I changed the placement of colors in the colorwork chart, as well as changing what I have been referring to as the “piano key section” so that the third contrast color is omitted and the pattern has a less-harsh look to it in that section. That is the only section of the chart where I changed the actual pattern, the rest of the chart I only changed the color placements.

Above is an update on my progress. You can see that in the mid-section of the colorwork I’ve rearranged the color to utilize both contrast colors and none of the main color. I really wanted a way to incorporate more of the pale lavender into the work, which also allows for a higher contrast between that and the Spincycle, as opposed to the Spincycle and the main color – especially in places where the Spincycle is quite dark. I’m very happy with how it is knitting up.

In other news, I’ve come to the conclusion to frog my Bloom Pullover. I have decided that both the pattern and the contrast color yarn deserve a place where they can really shine, and the bloom pullover isn’t right for the yarn I chose. I still plan to make the sweater, and I even plan to use the same grey yarn as the main color, but I haven’t decided what I’ll use as the contrast color. I’m certain that I have stash yarn that will be perfect and after I get a few of my WIPS off the needles I’ll revisit making it. The pattern is very well-written, and being made in a worsted weight means it goes by quickly.

So, that’s it for today’s updates. We’ll be travelling later this week so I’m hoping to get a chunk of knitting done while we’re away and have some good photos for an update when we’re back!