Holly Sea Princess

Kids' Clothes Week just ended and whilst I didn't do much in the way of sewing for my kids, I did get some knitting done. I spent at least an hour a day for the first four days of the week, and finally completed this Sea Princess cardigan for Amélie. The Sea Princess pattern by Elena Nodel, is available from Ravelry, and I recently discovered it is also on Craftsy*.


The pattern comes in sizes from six months through to nine years, and has quite a few options including double or single breasted, different sleeve lengths and shapes, as well as variations on how elaborate the cabling is. I chose long sleeves with the elaborate cables and just one row of buttons. I particularly love the detail on the back.


I knitted the cardigan on my Knit-Pro interchangeable needles from the top down. You knit it all as one piece, so there is no stitching up at the end. It starts below the neckband, and you knit front panel, shoulder, back panel, shoulder, front panel. You keep knitting, back and forth with some increases until you get to the underarm point, where you slip a bunch of stitches off onto a stitch holder for the sleeves, and then join the front and back panels together at the sides. There is a twisty cable that runs down the side "seams" between the front and the back. After you have completed this, and bound off at the bottom, you go back and knit the neckband, and then you knit the remainder of each sleeve in the round. All there is to do after casting off is to tidy up a little under the armpits and weave in all the ends. You can save yourself some trouble by knitting half of those ends in as you go. One of the fun things about knitting on interchangeable needles is that it is easy to try on as you go.


I used Bendigo Classic 8-ply in Holly to knit this cardigan. It comes in 200g balls, and I used about one and a half balls, leaving me 123g of yarn to knit something else. I might mix it up with some grey and knit some stripy hats. We will see. The yarn is only $12 a ball, so quite a reasonable price for good quality yarn.


When I finished knitting, Amélie and I went to the shop and chose some buttons. I picked up some that were red with teddy bears on them, but she wasn't interested in those. It is clear that she has more sophisticated taste than that.

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