Dahlia Dahling

After discovering the wonderful, lightweight feel (and getting over the fear) of knitting a fingering weight cardigan, I've been on a bit of a cardigan kick.  About a month ago I finished Dahlia from Interweave Knits Fall 2011.

I was immediately drawn to this cardigan because of the gorgeous lace panel and interesting construction.  

Here is the lace panel with the beginnings of the top and bottom panels...

The seams attaching the top and bottom panels to the lace panel were supposed to be left until the end...

But there was no way I was going to wait until I had knit the whole thing to see if it was going to work/fit so I did the seaming right away and alternated work on both sides for a while until I'd gotten past the armholes and was able to try it on to get an idea of fit.

 So far so good. The design is quite clever really and after lots of stockinette knitting (which I'm starting to find relaxing instead of annoying), I was very pleased with the results.

I really enjoyed this knit, but I must give a lot of the credit to the yarn.  Once again I turned to Madelinetosh (which is easily my favorite new yarn) and tried their Pashmina (a merino/silk/cashmere blend) in the Thyme colorway.   I really can't say enough wonderful things about this yarn, especially the colors!



A couple of notes...  I strongly suggest that you avoid the urge to block the lace panel before you have finished the cardigan as it will stretch out much more on it's own than it will once it is part of the larger finished sweater. 

Also, even thought my gauge was spot on, I ended up needing more yarn than the pattern called for.  In total I used about 3.5 hanks of Pashmina.  I had to order a 4th hank to supplement the 3 I had in my stash that I'd purchased at least a year ago so I was really lucky to get such a great match in color!