My Just Right Challenge: The Canada Cardie

I am linking in with Show and Tell on Leonie's Blog.



I really love to knit, over the years I have dabbled but never been able to produce much more than the odd hat or scarf. Being part of the blogging community you read a lot about knitting, I have seen so many beautiful things that people create. I have always dismissed them as being beyond my skill scope, but this year I decided that I would knit a cardigan for Millie.

The first attempt on the cheap bamboos, I do love knitting on the couch in my pjs after the kids are all in bed, preferably whilst watching a baking show

I had my heart set on knitting a Kina, I had fallen in love with this cardigan reading Retro Mummy and seeing the lovely ones that she had created. So much of this was new to me, I had limited experience of knitting on circular needles, I could barely read the pattern.....


When I was pregnant with Jack, I joined a pregnancy forum that has since morphed into a private Face Book group, and there are some incredibly skilled knitters in that group. I asked SO many questions of the woman on there, who happily shared their expertise with me. The Internet really is our modern village when we use it the right way.

Round two on the Addi needles, that is the Canadian cable remote in the background which I used to watch a season on Tori and Dean on demand, I can barely believe I am admitting this....

You tube was another invaluable resource. I learnt how to do a long tail cast on one night with a pause, play, rewind, pause, play, rewind and repeat... and the help of my ever patient mechanically minded husband guiding me through the motor planning difficulties that I faced with getting my knit on.


I had several attempts at starting this, difficulties with following the pattern and an absolute disaster when the cord on the cheap bamboo needles broke mid row when I was knitting one night at the boys Hapkido lesson.  I had to unravel all my hard work and start again. Then I was put onto Addi needles by one of my online friends and there was no looking back.

I took this photo whilst I sat in the back of our rented Dodge Caravan on the way back from Lego Land on a wet Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend where we got stuck in nightmare traffic on a ten lane highway, John did a superb job of driving on the wrong side of the road and I sat in the back with the children and my needles...

The bulk of this cardie was made while we were on holiday in Canada, I took it with me every time we went out in the car, I knitted to and from Lego land, I knitted to and from Niagara Falls and Marine Land. I knitted this while I sat watching the children swim for hours and hours.


It is my happy memory cardie, I feel like all those memories have been knitted into it's very fabric and the vibrant red of the bamboo yarn it is made of is just so Canadian.

I finished it off last weekend at the pools back at home, while the kids were once again swimming

I have such a sense of achievement about this cardigan, it is a bit of a dog's breakfast in parts, the border is  jagged and uneven, there were a few holes, but over all for a first garment I think it passes. It was my just right challenge, harder than anything I had made before, but not so hard I could not do it.  I did stall in parts, I got to the sleeves and was very intimidated about attempting them, but they turned out to not be difficult at all. Successfully completing something you have never done before is incredibly rewarding.
 After initially rejecting it, due to not being pink or purple, Millie has taken to wearing her cardigan  with gusto. Jack though, is the most fascinated by my knitting, he wants me to make him something. I probably will, I don't want to put my needles down now, I have the knitting bug, big time.