The many times knitted cardigan part 1

This started last year. I had a beautiful cardigan, actually I had two in different colours from the sale in Boden and wore them all the time. The design was really good and the company are part of the Ethical Trading Initiative, but it was was cashmere, difficult to wash and very expensive, especially when you want it in every colour, so I decided to knit my own.

After searching through many, many cardigan pictures on Ravelry I found the Hedda cardigan designed by Martin Storey, and headed to Liberty for the Winter Solace booklet and yarn.

The first version I made was in Rowan Alpaca, finished in December 2010. After previously knitting a cardigan coat with 22 balls that took three months of daily toil, this one took about three weeks, which made me very happy. Sadly following the instructions I washed it at 30 degrees. What I forgot was the spinning at the end of the wash. This is what seems to kills your knits.

Here is the tiny thing that came out of the washer, with the new Hedda mark 2, with more exciting buttons from Our Patterned Hand in Hackney.