I have been working on my Secret Garden cardigan this week and am loving how it is working up, however, last week I rewrote the colorwork chart for it. In the pattern it calls for a main color and three contrast colors, and I found that I preferred the idea of working with two CCs instead of the three, as I didn’t like the look of the sections in the yoke that resemble bars.
If you look at the pattern cover photo above I’m referring to the black and white lines that border the center colorwork. I think they look too harsh for what I want in the sweater, so I changed that part a bit. I also rewrote the colors used for the central part of the chart, as I wanted to use more of the Spincycle and the pale lavender yarn I have chosen as my two CCs.
In the progress photo above you can see that where the “bars” were in the original pattern I have made them more of a skewed checkered vibe and have only used the Spincycle with the main color. I really like how much softer it looks, which is what I want for the feel of this cardigan. You will also notice that a few rounds further down in the yoke I have changed the chart to only be working with the two contrast colors and am leaving the main color out of it until further down in the chart. I felt like this was the best way to do two things: 1) the Spincycle yarn stands out much more against the pale lavender yarn than it does against the main color, and 2) I feel like it incorporates the pale lilac into the pattern more than in the original chart where it is only used for vines on the start of the yoke and the end of it. In the original pattern photo you will notice that there is also some contrast color in the button band along the edges, but I will leave that off as I don’t want attention drawn to the button band, I’d rather the colorwork have all the glory, lol.
Here is a photo I took the other day of it on me, although I couldn’t pull it down far enough while also taking the photo, so I’ll have my partner help me when I try it on again before splitting for sleeves to see if I need to make any adjustments to the way it will fit. One thing I haven’t figured out yet is what buttons I want to use. I’ll have to thumb through my stash this week and see if I have anything that I think will work well.
