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).



...the biz .. Pattern Source:
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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.


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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.
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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.
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