Ester Cardigan

I am in squeaky acrylic yarn heaven! Why squeaky, you ask? Well, when you knit with acrylic yarn, it often makes a squeaking noise when it rubs against aluminum knitting needles. I think it's charming.


This is my new Ester Shrug. I just finished it this afternoon and am mighty happy with how it turned out!

Have you ever heard of a knitalong? No? I hadn't really, either. But in the last few months I have started doing a google search about any cool-looking free pattern I find on the internet, just to see if anyone else is making that project and how they liked the pattern.

Anyway, after searching "Ester cardigan" I found a "knitalong" blog someone had set up so lots of knitters could all knit that one project at the same time and report back to one another on how they were progressing. I found it very interesting to see what the other ladies had said about this particular pattern. I think this whole knitalong idea is really neat, and so I started "googling" other patterns I like and these knitalong things are all over the web!


Anyway, on the Ester knitalong blog, one of the biggest complaints of this pattern is that the finished shrug seemed too big, and yet too small at the same time. Many mentioned that it wasn't long enough in the back or that the arms were too tight.

With this information in hand, I set out to knit a modified version of Ester to make sure I wouldn't run into this same problem. If you are thinking about making Ester and you like my version, I ignored the pattern author's warning and made the ribbing 10 rows longer at the beginning and the end (35 rows total). In addition, at each end I made the cable section about 1/2 inch longer than the pattern called for in my size (medium). This adds a few extra inches to the circumfrence of the garment without making the arm holes too big.

For those of you who haven't quite figured out how this piece is put together, just picture a "T." Then imagine twisting the two top ends of the T and sewing them upside-down to the sides. It's a very interesting construction method.







Here's me in the shrug. The result of adding those extra 10 rows of ribbing is that I have enough room to close it in the front without the arms getting all pulled out of shape. I think this was the root of the complaints I found by other ladies knitting this project.

Anyway, since I don't want to hold the shrug closed like this every time I wear it, I'm off to the store to find some cute hooks or buttons to secure it in the front.





But before I head out, here's one more picture of the cool cable pattern in the back. This cable pattern is way easier than it looks, which is my favorite kind of project to knit! Also, since this pattern was pretty easy and very repetitive, I didn't have to fully concentrate on watching my knitting and therefore I used the time while knitting this shrug to memorize my German text for my concert next Sunday!

Oh wait, you want to know the best part about this project? It used just over three skeins of Red Heart Sport acrylic yarn, which only cost me around $6.00.