There is a new cardigan pattern out and about - The BeauB, an ample piece which showcases subtle and understated features with it’s textured striping where the material itself becomes the focus, a simple stitch pattern on neckband, hem and pockets and lots of small decorative finishing details.

Although he is more of a men's wear fashion icon, he still fascinates me in regards to attitude and design-philosophy (and also because of his wit, but that's a totally different subject), so that I wanted to make him "my" hero for one of my own designs.

In my cardigan, the sloped raglan shoulder was meant to give a natural looking and well fitting shape to the yoke, while a neckband with a fuller volume at the top allows for generous draping at the patterned, reversible neckline and thus following Beau's spirit of enhancing this area. The subtle stitch pattern is repeated at hem, pockets and cuffs, which feature a twisted i-cord edging that is easy to make but with more visual interest than a simple edging.

The extra long sleeves gradually become transparent and flow into a delicate repetition of the stitch pattern in their lower part. As the neckband, they can be worn folded up too, to show the reverse side of the simple knit/purl stitch pattern.
The whole cardigan is worked seamlessly from the top down in subtle striping, by knitting with two strands of yarn (held together or alone) in sequence to form the stripes, so that we get more of a discreet textured striping than a coloured one. This can of course be worked with a bigger visual impact, if the thinner yarn is knitted in a contrasting colour and not in the same as in my own project shown here.

This simple cowl has an elongated front piece to keep the décolleté warm and cozy without adding bulk to the back side of the neck. It is a perfect accessory for collarless jackets and open front cardigans: like a turtle neck that can be taken off indoors.

You can buy both the BeauB and MissBrummell here on this site, or go over to ravelry to check them out and take a look at the lovely projects of other knitters.

I hope you like them and I wish you all a wonderful and inspiring New Year!!!

About two weeks ago I showed you a method of working a stretchy applied i-cord (or i-cord bind off) which doesn't involve going up a needle size or change the look of your stitches. 
That technique can also be used to work with finer yarn than the one of the main project. 
I called it the "spaced-out" applied i-cord and I am glad that so many of you liked it!

So, let's imagine that you finished up your i-cord bind off on your neckline, hem or cuff - and it thankfully looks great and doesn't pucker - and now you want to close it up to finally be able to try your garment on and admire your hard work...
What do you do? Don't say that you are going to sew the ends together like that, hoping that nobody will notice the harsh line or bump right in the middle of your perfect, smooth, round and even i-cord edge??!!??

Well, as the title already gave away, in this post you can find the answer about how to graft the two ends of an i-cord invisibly together. 
For the ones that aren't already familiar with this technique, I prepared the following photo-tutorial to round up on the i-cord subject (for now): 

(Click on the pictures below to read the high-resolution PDF and download it for further reference if you like and find more tutorials here)

So... no more unsightly sewing lines, gaps or bulky connections in our i-cord universe anymore! 
And no need to avoid i-cords in general. This method might take much more time than a simple bind off, but it is so much more beautiful, isn't it?

First of all: since we are talking New, we need to talk new yarn a bit!
I think it is always a happy moment to introduce the new friends we recently brought home to live with us... So, meet my new pals:

These guys up here are from Schoppel's Cat Print Hand Dye Collection: 6 Karat (80% wool and 20% silk) and have a lovely sheen that must look really gorgeous when knitted up! 
I especially love the green with the blue hues (colourway: Froschkönig - King of Frogs!!!). 
Well, it definitely feels and looks like it is something a royal amphibian would be happy to be clad in.

And I got some summery yarn, too: Leinen Los (70% wool & 30% linen) is a sport weight yarn that knits up with a nice hand and will be gorgeous in a draped garment. One can feel the linen much more in the grey yarn, which has more of a papery feel than the cream one. 

The last I got was this different, natural sock yarn called Alb Socke. The wool is locally sourced from Swabian Jura in Germany and it also has 15% linen in it - So there is no synthetic fibre in this sock yarn: The main reason I wanted to try it out, since I was keen on finding an alternative to the nylon that is usually mixed into sock yarn, to give it durability and longevity.

I can't really say that I am convinced, though.... they are so tiny that one needs to hold them very differently. After knitting about 20 minutes with these little fellows I felt a slight pain in my fingers, for the first time ever since I knit! Either I am getting old or It might very well be that I am not at all used to holding the needles like that and that my hands are not relaxed at all while knitting...  I definitely need to give them a chance though and see how it goes.

...an i-cord edging!
I don't know if you ever had this problem of working either an i-cord bind off or an applied i-cord all around your magnificent, wonderful project just to find out (after 3 hours of uninterrupted labour) that it was worked too tightly and that instead of providing the most professional finishing for your hand knitted marvel, it is now sitting tensely on the edge, puckering and firmly drawing the fabric in.
This is not a nice experience, believe me (especially not when one ruins perfectly well fitting necklines like this)! 
After talking (and lamenting) about it numerous times with knitting friends I thought about a way to counteract this tight i-cord edging phenomena:

So... another tutorial was in order and here it is: Say hi to the spaced out, applied i-cord!
As always you can click on the pictures below to go to the high resolution document and actually be able to read this thing (or download it as a PDF).

This method to space out an added edging and to provide length and therefore more stretch can be used for all i-cord edges (not only the applied kind that is showed here on the sides of a knitted fabric, but also for binding off live stitches at the end of one's work).

One could even use a totally different, lighter weight yarn for the i-cord and cast off a project worked in DK with fingering or lace weight in this way...
...just play around to find out!

I do hope that now there are even more possibilities out there for you to stash bust, since you get more options to combine yarns and use your luxurious one skein of sock yarn only for the neckline and cuffs, for a really professional finishing this time.
Even if you'd need to work quite a lot of i-cords to diminish your stash, I am sure...
;)

Oh... and if you haven't seen my other tutorials you can always find all of them here.