A birthday sweater inspired by the dragons on an existing sweater that has seen a better day. I chose the published pattern #22 Shawl Collar Cardigan by Kenny Chua (Knit Simple Magazine, Fall 2011 – Ravelry link) because I liked the overall shape that only required slight modifications to adjust for the difference in gauge of the stranded colorwork (versus garter stitch at yoke).
The pattern also calls for Brown Sheep Lanaloft Worsted, which comes in an amazing variety of colors (also US-made!). Colors employed here: Aged Navy; Manor Grey; Japanese Maple; Deep Peacock; Twist of Lime; Lemon Pound Cake. I’ve found that my sweaters turn out better when I stick with the pattern’s suggested yarn, so why fight it?
I employed the Red Dragon chart by Sandra Jäger (also found on Ravelry) for the bottom row of dragons (Twist of Lime and one Deep Peacock on Lemon Pound Cake background).
The other two dragons I charted from the original sweater. Knitting Graph Paper using an Excel spreadsheet provided by ColorNotes Yarn made the charting process super-simple. I also found that it helped to knit a sample as I drafted the chart since sometimes counting was tedious because stitches were stretched or just hard to see.
The middle band of dragons aka Running Dragon (above) is done in Aged Navy on the Manor Grey background. The top row of dragons aka Crazed Dragon (below) is Japanese Maple on Manor Grey.
Interspersed between all these dragons are variations on the Macedonian Stitch from Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns (available to borrow for free via the Internet Archive). Macedonian Stitch is from the Mosaic Patterns section of the book. I varied the stitch pattern somewhat, sometimes using all sixteen rows in order, sometimes repeating the first eight or the second eight . . . and definitely varied the colors at will. I was a little worried as I knitted up the sleeves that it would be too much, but I think it works with the overall look and spirit of the sweater.
I’m particularly fond of the errant blue dragon facing off on the lower right front – an easy modification made by reversing the printout of the charted pattern!
Takeaways? This sweater actually knitted up relatively quickly (finished in less than a month) for two reasons: 1) each section of dragons was finished in one or two sittings because of my desire to complete each chart and 2) knitting the two front and two sleeves at the same time avoided the dread of having to knit up the same thing that I had just finished AGAIN. I’ll never knit a single sleeve (or cardigan front) again!
