Gnarled oak

A wonderful knit from coastal knits- a collaboration project from Alana Dakos and Hannah Fettig. As soon as I saw the preview I ordered the yarn - pigeonroof studios cassiopea dk from the states. The dyer had only 4 skeins in her etsy shop whilst the pattern calls for 6 skeins. I know the designer must add some extra yardage for safety but from past experience I know that for my size (XS-S) , 3 to 4 100 grams double knitting skeins are enough. The yarn is truly amazing ; exquisite colouring- love those silky shades of brown and green ,  it is  squishy with great stitch definition, and oh so soft against the skin.

Its a basic cardigan with striking embossed oak leaves on the yoke. Now I have this obsession to leave as little as possible yarn left overs and sometime I do go for the extreme. So here is what I've done ; started the cardigan from the bottom up, now doubting I haven't got enough yarn - made the body only 34 cm before starting the sleeves.  I've made a provisional cast on for the sleeves close to the armhole (about an inch) , join them to body and knitted up the yoke and cast off at the neck. Then rejoined the sleeves and knitted them downwards longer than stated up to above the wrist. Having finished the sleeves I had about half a skein left so without hesitation I inserted  a life line just above the rib hem of the body, cut the rib away, rejoined and  knitted downward until basically run out of yarn and then started the rib with the yarn frogged from the original rib.  A similar process was done here. I wanted to create a more slimline cardigan and I'm happy with the extra length skimming over the hips.
 

By the way the real stars here are my goats , the nanny with the collar is an old English pure breed. She is a definite character , goats are not as daft as sheep, there is a certain intelligence behind those alien eyes.. I'm milking her every morning and making  cheese.  Her two billies are called ,cough cough, Lunch and Dinner or in short Ed and Zed. But hey this is a knitting blog and I'm busy with holiday knitting , more of which later..