Fisher’s Island Cardigan

Part II: Starting your project

Look at the schematic:

What do you notice? First, the cardigan is made in one piece. And second, it starts at the right sleeve and is worked across the body to the left sleeve.

The instructions for the right sleeve are simple and self-explanatory. However, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that once you start making the increases you will notice that one side of the sleeve looks more slanted than the other. Don’t panic, you are doing just fine. It’s all because a) we are working in straight rows and regular rows, b) all our sc rows start on one side and all the hdc rows start on the other therefore we have straight rows starting on one side, the regular are staggered on the other.

What should we do? Once the project is done we are going to block it very intensely to make sure the slopes of the sleeves are similar. In any case the sides will be sewn together, and nobody will be able to see the unevenness.

Once the sleeve is done you want to make sure it’s up to the measurements. According to the diagram it has to be 15” for the smallest size. IMPORTANT: it has to be about ½” shorter than that because the next section includes one extra row for the sleeve. Please check the red line on the schematics.

Body: To work the body of the cardigan we will start at the right front (check the blue arrow on the diagram). With the new ball of yarn, we will chain for the side of the right front (later it will become our side seam) then work across the right sleeve (that’s our last row for the sleeve) and then chain for the right side of the back (and that’s our side seam).

Ribbing: When working the front and the back you want to create the ribbing at the bottom of the cardigan. It means that the beginning and the end of each SC row has several stitches worked through the back loop only. It is done to create the ridge pattern that looks like a ribbing when turned vertically.

Neck Shaping:

Shaping the neck is simple. We stop working on the front and continue on the back only. There is one decrease happening in the 3^rd row worked by skipping the first 2 stitches. Once we have worked the rows of the back we need to make an increase on the opposite side of the neck in the last row of the Neck Shaping portion of the pattern by inserting 2 hdc in each of the last 2 stitches.

Happy crocheting!