Alpaca Alpaca Alpaca! Part 1

Alpaca alpaca alpaca!
My knitting has been FULL of alpacas lately. Adorable, soft, warm fluffy little creatures. Watch out though, they spit.

First alpaca-y thing: My sweater!

Rav page

I cast on this cardigan almost a year ago, with some yarn I got at OABA Alpacafest 2008. Alpacafest 2009 was this weekend, and I got lots of goodies from that - that deserves its own post. I finished the cardigan Friday night, just in time to wear to the 'fest.

It's a Drops pattern, "Cardigan knitted in lace pattern", which is exactly what it says on the tin. I used some wonderful REALLY REALLY SOFT sportweight alpaca, which was unlabelled when I bought it but I found out to be Henry's Attic Prime Alpaca (color musk).

I knit the body as written, but did a 3-needle bind off on the shoulders and picked up stitches for the sleeves to knit them top-down, making the cardigan completely seamless. I also learned how to crochet buttonloops! Very exciting, no?


I almost got the cardigan out of one 700-yarn skein - if I had knit a smaller size, I probably would have. As it was, I ran out just past the sleeve caps and had to rely on the help of some wonderful, generous Ravellers. :) Thank you!

Even though it took me almost a year to knit this thing, the pattern really isn't bad. It's pretty simple, though the Drops instructions are somewhat vague and the chart is impossible to read (I had to rechart it myself). The best part is, it fits! I'm stoked.

~Joyuna