Something old, something new

Last year, for Christmas, I made a really pretty little cardigan "Petite Fraise" by Joanne Scrace for my great niece. Unfortunately, is was a bit on the short side - nothing wrong with the pattern, little Fearne is long and tall for her age (her Dad's 6'4" and she seems to be following in his footsteps. So I decided to make another one, this time in two colours (plus the strawberries).
Used up some generic acrylic DK from the stash.

But I have also been trying new things. I've been looking at "contiguous" patterns for a while (top down, set in sleeve, all in one) and knew that I couldn't attempt to construct a pattern without having made one.

This seemed a great opportunity to use a ball of Drops Verdi that I had bought a while ago (1 ball = 1225m). According to the ball band, this should be on large needles but, for my taste, it made the fabric too airy. I swatched on 4.5mm needles and found a pattern to match - My Casual Cardigan by Elena Nodel. That has a cable panel and collar, which I didn't want, but gave the shaping etc which I did.

Happy with the result - had to do a bit of juggling with the yarn to try to get the sleeves something like each other in terms of striping.

The yarn is lovely - bulky but very light and much softer than it looks. A quick knit and a machine washable result. Jobs a good 'un.