Ta da (add trumpet flourish here)
Yes, it’s a sock. There’s nothing particularly special about this except that it means that I’ve finished knitting the cardigan. Easter is still a long way off and to start something new I have to finish some other project. I had thought that this would be a handspun scarf or the Nine Tailor’s sock but it has ended up as a sock for my son. On Saturday morning after I’d finished whining on the blog about the endless bands I sat with a cup of tea at music school and prepared to slog my way towards the end. It took less time than I thought and it was lucky that I’d gone prepared with other knitting because I added an inch to Ophelia’s sleeve while having my second cup of tea. I am grateful to have a son who is a musician rather than a footballer. Mothers of footballers get to stand on the sideline in the wind rather than being inside in a warm, well lit school cafeteria, drinking tea and knitting. It goes a long way to make up for having to carry a euphonium to and from school once a week.
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Here is the finished article. This is Sirdar B7145, made in a lambswool and silk blend that I bought on a huge cone from ebay. I got lucky with the yarn, it is a lovely marled grey and the tension was spot on. There is still a huge amount left, there’s enough left over for another garment or two. Mods- none. If I were making it again then I’d change the sleeve shaping to two decreases on alternate rows rather than a decrease at the start of every row because it’s the pattern that I’m used to and that I automatically fall into. I’d also change the button bands because if I knit another one ever again it will be one too many. I have no idea why it feels as if I spent longer knitting those two little strips than I spent knitting two sleeves, two fronts and a back. If doing it again I might have another go at working out exactly what I should have been doing on the second crochet row along the neck. I’m not at all happy with that crochet edge, the directions were somewhat terse. I gathered that it should have been worked in the opposite direction to the first row but that was all. I suspect that it might have been aiming for crab stitch but I might be way off with that. I enjoyed knitting this (apart from those bands), the pattern was simple enough to count as tv knitting but it added enough interest to keep things moving along. When this left me it had no buttons and six buttonholes, now it has eight of each because that’s the number of buttons my mother took off her old cardigan. 
The other really good thing about this pattern was the tiny little sleeves. You’ve got to love a sleeve where you start shaping after three inches. It has a puffed top, the cast off row is all k3tog psso and I found that entertaining too.
