Mouton Gilet

French style in this kit by Catherine Bouquerel. The cardigan is easy to make and done in 3 pieces. The kit comes complete with all the tools and garnitures required to make the cardigan. I substituted the yarn and buttons, since I wanted to use a soft yarn (my sweater was done in Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino). It's a stylish and fast knit, but do be aware the instructions come in French (as you would expect from a French kit).

Pattern Source: Yarn: # of balls: Notions: Needles: Meterage: Yarn Source: Colour: Size: Started: Finished: Resting Period: Recipient :

Catherine Bouquerel Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino 3 skeins - pewter 5 small jaeger buttons 3.00mm 125 meters/50g Stash given to me by my friend Debbie T Pewter 9 month old 30 July 2004 6 August 2004 None TBD

The texture is very simple but very effective. The body is knit in one piece with the button bands. All done on a tension tighter than recommended by the yarn manufacturer.

I made quite a few changes to the original design. In fact, the sweater looks similar to the one in the photo, but I stopped following the instructions, somewhere after the stitch instruction. It wasn't that I didn't understand the instructions (pipe down peanut gallery), but, the kit was designed for a beginner knitter with a miniumum of techniques. A more advanced knitter can easily amend the designs with subtle changes that maintains the spirit of the designs and get a more eloquent finish.

Project Notes

1. Kitchener stitch the shoulder join, so that I have a continuously patterned shoulder.





2. I changed the decreasings on the vee neck to use. ssk and k2 tog. as opposed to k2tog on both sides. It adds a nicer touch to the slooping.

3. For the back of the neck, I kept the stitches live and short row shaped the neckline. I then attached the garter edging by k3, k2 tog (1 from edge stitch and 1 from neckline) similar technique for attaching lace edging to shawls. You can't see very well, but that neckline in the orginial design isn't a continuation of the garter edging on the front.


4. I wanted to use the buttons in the kit but I think that they were too pale. Lovely pale wooden buttons were too stark against the pewter so I used some mother of pearl Jaeger buttons instead.





[close window]