A New Cardigan

In addition to yesterday's socks, I started a new sweater for 2016, since finishing my Pashmina Dexter last week.  In fact, I started another Dexter - this time in Madelinetosh Dandelion in Carnation.  This is my first time using the Dandelion base, but I'm liking it.  It's a singles yarn, very similar to Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light, but it has 10% linen in it, which doesn't take the dye and which blooms slightly, like little dandelion puffs.  I think the linen also adds some drape to the yarn because my swatch seems to have more drape than it would if it was TML.  I also think Dandelion has a slightly larger diameter than TML, it looks more like Malabrigo's Mechita size wise.

Since I was so happy with my first Dexter, I decided to do it again and knew it would be faster to just do the second right after the first.  This one will be more of a spring Dexter than the blue one, and if I knit fast enough, I might be able to wear it this year!  Logan helped me wind the skeins into balls and he did quality checks on them - no bacon inside.

As I was using a new yarn base, I knit an actual gauge swatch.  I know, it's shocking, but I lived through it, and actually washed it before blocking and measuring.  No surprises there, I got gauge on US 5's (3.75mm), same needle size I used for the Pashmina Dexter.

I've just gotten started with the yoke, but you can already see the texture on the fronts and back starting to emerge (the sleeves are stockinette).  On the Ink Dexter, the color is so dark, it's hard to see the texture - you can see that it's not stockinette, but it's not clear what it is.  The Carnation color (unfortunately discontinued by Madelinetosh) is light enough that you can actually see what's going on.  Even though I'm using the same pattern twice, the finished cardigans will probably be so different that no one will ever realize it was the same pattern.