I started this sweater a loooong time ago - maybe 12-14 years ago. I remember buying the yarn in John Lewis on Oxford St with Christina, but I dont remember the year. I think I remember it so clearly as I bought not only the yarn for this cardi, but also some cream cotton for a lace cardi, and at the time it seemed like a huge amount of money to spend. I did finish the lace cardi and still have it in my cupboard, I even wear it occasionally!
The pattern is Chinese Lanterns by Kaffe Fassett, however one row of the lanterns convinced me I didnt want to do a detailed intarsia cardigan. The real pattern has the lanterns in an all-over pattern. The problem now is that I dont have enough of the main yarn (Rowan Cotton Glace in Mint, colour 748) to finish the sleeves.
Although Cotton Glace is still in production, the mint colour seems completely unobtainable. Its hard to believe that missing out the lanterns should have used so much of the main colour yarn, especially as intarsia is so wasteful of yarn, but I had a bag full of the other colours and two balls of mint.
So my challenge is to try to knit something for the sleeves that uses the yarn that I have got and does not look too awful. I'd like the sleeves to be as long as possible so my current plan is to continue knitting the striped pattern with a band of mint between the repeats until I run out of mint. It's a pretty oversized cardigan, so the length shown is almost elbow length. Then I'm going to finish with the patterned rib.
I'm not sure what made me pick this up after so long, maybe just the sight of it looming out of my yarn box so reproachfully...?
Edited to add: Christina tells me we bought the yarn in 1992 - so that makes it 15 years old, Also I scored 3 balls of mint (I think) so am now planning to rip out the stripes and reknit the sleeves with a row of lanterns around the bottom.
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