DIY: Knit Featherweight Cardigan in Watermelon Soul

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This is my third Featherweight cardigan! I knit my first (a grey one) in December 2018 and my second (a mustard one) in September 2019. As I’ve said before, this makes the perfect travel project. Back in December 2018, Ryan and I flew to Arizona for a relative’s wedding, and I cast on in the airport. I cast on my second last summer just before Tomiko and I flew to Iceland. And finally, I cast on my third just before Ryan and I left for China in October 2019.

This time I used Juniper Moon Farm Findley Dappled in the Watermelon Soul colourway. I actually bought the two skeins when Ryan and I visited Arizona last year! Each skein is a generous 730 metres, so I only had to bring one skein on my trip. As our vacation to China was for only two weeks, I knew there was no way I’d need the second skein. On our 13-hour flight to Beijing, I barely slept and didn’t watch any movies because I was knitting and listening to podcasts! When we flew to Zhangjiajie, I packed my knitting in our checked luggage. The Chinese security was very strict and I didn’t want to lose my needles!

I love this yarn because it’s a 50-50 merino-silk blend. The silk adds shine and drape to the warm and elastic wool. The dappled nature of this colourway also gives a beautiful effect once it’s all knit up.

To knit the cardigan, I used 2.5 mm needles. Since this was my third rodeo, I decided to play with the gauge a bit. I normally have a loose gauge, and my first cardigan used the 42″ size. This time, I tried to tighten my gauge and knit the 52″ size to make a denser fabric. I think I’ve succeeded!

I knit the body and bottom ribbing with one whole ball of yarn, and the sleeves and ribbed collar with the second whole ball of yarn. No leftovers! As I intentionally tried to use up all the yarn, I had to have a plan. I made sure that I knit the sleeves to full length first, before picking up stitches along the front edges and collar. This way, I could make the collar as wide or as narrow as my remaining yarn allowed. I didn’t want to end up with extra long or mismatched sleeves!

To lengthen the sleeves, I decreased every 15 rows 10 times. Then I knit 25 rounds of stockinette before knitting 25 rows of 1×1 ribbing. To keep the ribbing firm but stretchy, I cast off using a yarn over cast off after every knit/purl rib.

The Featherweight cardigan includes several sizes, ranging from a bust size of 32″ to 62″. The raglan sleeve increases are also easy to memorize, meaning that you don’t need to carry around the pattern with you. The one needle size and one ball of laceweight yarn means that the whole project is very portable too! Even though I’ve now knit three cardigans, I can see several more in my future. We’re planning to go to Spain this fall, and I will probably cast on a fourth for that trip!

The Featherweight Cardigan knitting pattern by Hannah Fettig (Knitbot) is available on Ravelry here.