It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for! It’s time to cast on our Delancey Cardigans and get this show on the road!

Last week you gauged, and from there you have decided which size to knit, whether that is Alexis’s new plus sized pattern or the original, and you have decided if you are going to follow her notes for shortening Delancey. So with all of these things considered, you are going to knit this sweater with the most educated guesses you can to get a sweater you love.

Laura's Delancey Swatch

So it’s time! Grab your main color and let’s do this.

This Week’s Delancey Cardigan Goal: Work your Delancey pattern through row 54.

Casting on 5 sts to start a sweater is pretty unusual, but we are starting this sweater by knitting to triangles that will become the bottom sides of the sweater. It’s fun and keeps you on your toes!

Melissa's Swatch Options

I hate paying attention to row count as much as the next knitter, but it is a vital part of knitting Delancey. Pull out a notebook or stick a sticky note to your pattern and keep track by hash-marks, or by writing out each row, making a note by each row number where you have to stripe or change something. Notes while working this pattern are really helpful!

Especially with your striping. Following the pattern as written, you are starting your striping on row 30, which is not noted in the pattern but as a note at the beginning before the instructions start, and striping is resumed every 24 rows. If you are working the shortened version, like I am, striping starts on row 20, and is resumed every 18 rows. And you are on your own with working in your striping! So keep good count of your rows.

Jamie with some Gauge Math!

And a little hot tip: SSK decreases are always hard for me, so I just K2tog through the back loops. It ends up looking the same and for whatever reason takes less hand eye coordination.

Once both side triangles are worked, they are joined together and all your sweater sts are worked back and forth. You’ll get a few rows past your joined side panels this week.

So cast on and start working the bottom of this cardigan! Email me pics or share them on the forum. This is going to be FUN!

Related Sweatshop Love:

• January 30, 2012 -- Delancey KAL Starts Next Week! So Let’s Swatch.
• January 16, 2012 -- Announcing our Winter KAL Sweater: The Delancey Cardigan!
• September 19, 2011 -- Fall KAL – Let’s Vote!

Our next knit along sweater, the Delancey Cardigan, starts a week from today! I know everyone is excited about it because our rav group has grown by leaps and bounds. I’ve been getting tons of emails from knitters ordering yarn and buying up the pattern.

And remember! Alexis Winslow‘s coupon codes end next week, so if you want in on this KAL get it now! Use coupon code DELANCEY50 for 50% off the pattern price, OR, if you’ve got your eye on the Delancey Cardigan and another of Alexis’s patterns, use coupon code DELANCEYBOGO to get them buy one, get one free.

PS – Alexis just released a plus sized version of this pattern! Check it out here.

This Week’s Delancey Cardigan Goal: Gauge.

My Delancey Swatch

It SOUNDS easy, but we’ve got some decisions to make out of the gate here. I’ve done a lot of reading of reviews of this sweater from knitters who’ve finished it, and the consensus seems to be that Delancey comes out big. So if you like oversized sweaters, stick to the pattern and you will get a beautiful, slightly oversized cardigan.

If you want a more fitted cardigan, like I do, we are going to make a couple changes. I got one of the yarns the pattern calls for, which is Knit Picks Swish DK. The needle size appropriate for this yarn is 5, while the pattern calls for size 8. The first thing I’m going to do is drop my needle size down to size 7, which will tighten up the gauge, eliminating some of the stretch from wear and blocking, and make a smaller sweater just that easily.

About 3 1/2" Wide, 1/2" Smaller

My gauge swatch with size 7s came out 3 1/2″ wide and 4 1/2″ tall, which I was not expecting! Alexis wrote a really helpful post explaining that she is crazy tall, and that if you aren’t super tall you might want to shorten up the sweater. Because of the unusual construction of Delancey, shortening the sweater is not as easy as just starting my armholes early. I was thinking about doing this to begin with, but with my gauge coming out so crazy tall, I’ll for sure be following Alexis’s tips and shortening the body.

About 4 1/2" Long, 1/2" Longer

Even though my gauge came out at 3 1/2″ wide, which means I’ll lose about 4 1/2″ of sweater if I stick to the 36″ size (my normal sweater size), I’m still going down to size 33. I’d rather try to block a little bigger than get a sweater that is too big.

So next week I’ll be casting on for the smallest size, with my DK weight yarn and my size 7 needles. So much of knitting is guessing! With all the information out there about Delancey, this is my best guess for sweater knitting success. I hope you use this information to make the best possible guess for how to get your sweater the way you want it, too. Questions? Email me, or ask it on the forum.

And be sure to email me at allyson@thesweatshopoflove.com if you want on the KAL mailing list!

We got this! And next week we cast on!

Related Sweatshop Love:

• January 16, 2012 -- Announcing our Winter KAL Sweater: The Delancey Cardigan!
• February 6, 2012 -- Let’s Do This! It’s Cast On Day!
• September 19, 2011 -- Fall KAL – Let’s Vote!

My mom got me the Knit Picks Blocking Mats for my birthday a few weeks ago! I had my eye on these for years, and have been using towels laying all over my house to block on since I started knitting.

My Stack of New Blocking Mats

One of the main reasons I wanted to get these mats is because I thought they’d attract my cats less than towels always do. I swear my cats lay in wait for me to block things because they are only truly happy when they are sleeping on wet towels.

Velma Scoping it Out

Velma, the smart one, was the first to check it out. She took a few minutes to sniff around, but lost interest quickly.

Pudge Testing the Water

Pudge really wanted to make this work! She is usually the one sleeping on the wet sweaters the most, so once Velma walked away she was all over it.

Pudge Giving Up!

But it just wasn’t the same! She walked around the sweater and the blocking mats for another few minutes, but ended up leaving, too. It was fantastic! No yarn pulls, no messed up sweater, no wet cat hair! And the sweater dried overnight, and even though it’s cotton, the sweater is worsted cotton! Overnight drying is still pretty damn good.

So I’m in love with my blocking mats! Thanks mom!

… and y’all can just go ahead and ignore that sweater drying on that mat. There is nothing to see here.

Related Sweatshop Love:

• March 9, 2011 -- Kimono Wr- YAAAWWWNNNN -ap Cardigan
• July 5, 2010 -- Happy Birthday Velma!
• May 3, 2010 -- FO: Built By Wendy Mini Dress
• December 30, 2009 -- Cat Distruction and a Blogger Award

Our Knit Alongs are getting pretty popular! Thank god, because it gives me an excuse to keep doing them. We’ve knit some beautiful sweaters together! The Beatnik and my Two Boyfriends Cardigan, Make Up Your Mind and The Loop Entrelac Tank, and we just finished our Aidez cardigans, so we’ve got a lot to live up to!

Last fall we held a vote for our next KAL sweater. Aidez BARELY beat out Delancey, so I figured let’s do it! Delancey Cardigan it is!

Delancey Cardigan by Alexis Winslow

And I’ve loved this sweater since I saw it over a year ago, and since I’m the boss what I say goes. Something tells me you are all pretty pumped, too.

More good news? Alexis Winslow, the super talented designer behind this pattern, has been kind enough to offer KALers a couple coupon codes! When you purchase the Delancey Cardigan pattern on ravelry, use coupon code DELANCEY50 for 50% off the pattern price.

OR, if you’ve got your eye on the Delancey Cardigan and another of Alexis’s patterns, use coupon code DELANCEYBOGO to get them buy one, get one free. These coupon codes are good until the KAL kicks off on February 6th.

CUTE Cardi!

Fun, right? I can’t wait to get started!

If you are not on my KAL mailing list, shoot me an email at allyson@thesweatshopoflove.com to get weekly updates in your inbox every Monday morning.

The Delancey Cardigan is part of the Knit Picks Independent Designer Program, so Knit Picks makes it really easy to pick out the yarn for this sweater. Use the kit builder to chose your size, then chose between Capra, Swish DK, and City Tweed DK right on that page. Any DK weight will work for Delancey, of course, so feel free to substitute at will.

Knit Picks Swish DK

I’m going a little crazy with my colors! I’ve picked Knit Picks Swish DK in Gulfstream as my main color. I wanted a bright yellow as my contrasting color, but since the yellow Swish DKs were sold out and unavailable for months, I slipped over to Brava Sport and scooped up their Canary!

Brava Sport

Sweet, right? Take a peek at the finished projects on ravelry for color ideas. This sweater looks awesome in such a wide verity of color combinations, so don’t be afraid to pump it up.

Our Winter KAL kicks off in three weeks! We’re casting on Monday, February 6th, so get your yarn ordered, gauge up, and get ready to knit up this beautiful cardigan!

And a huge thank you to Alexis for offering her pattern as a discount for us. Be sure to say hi to her at her blog and on twitter!

Related Sweatshop Love:

• January 30, 2012 -- Delancey KAL Starts Next Week! So Let’s Swatch.
• February 6, 2012 -- Let’s Do This! It’s Cast On Day!
• September 19, 2011 -- Fall KAL – Let’s Vote!

In November I released four new accessories patterns I designed for my friend Theresa’s organization WORK+SHELTER, a women’s shelter in India dedicated to getting women in need a fair wage and shelter for work they do producing products. They are in training right now, learning to knit in order to produce the first collection. It’s pretty amazing to think that there are women on the other side of the world knitting up projects I’ve designed, and that those products are going to help them live a better life.

Knit Picks Dishie in Conch

I’m knitting up four new sample products for a new line right now, and working up the patterns. This time two sweaters are included! So the sample knitting is taking a lot longer this time. But I’m chugging along!

Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in my Yarn Bowl!

I’ll have all the samples knit up and shot and patterns written up and ready to debut in February. Because the shelter is still in it’s beginning phases and isn’t able to produce many products to sell yet, pattern sales have been one of the only ways it’s making money. I’m so happy to report that to date pattern sales have earned WORK+SHELTER nearly $1000! And most of that is due to the fact that my patterns were included in Knit Pick’s weekly email last week.

Lace Stitch Pattern Stripes

So thank you for purchasing my WORK+SHELTER patterns. Every little bit helps, as you can see, and even $2 a pattern adds up. I can’t wait to get these four new projects finished and written and ready to start helping with their sales, too!

And more than that? I’ll be traveling to India this fall to lend a hand where I can! Hopefully I can teach as well without knowing the language as I can in English. I’ll keep you posted, of course!

I’m also knitting up the three patterns I’m contributing to the first Holla Knits collection, and you can get progress pics on the Holla Knits Blog.

Related Sweatshop Love:

• January 11, 2012 -- FO: Emilien
• November 23, 2011 -- WIP Wednesday (for once!)
• November 9, 2011 -- WORK+SHELTER Cabled Clutch Pattern
• November 2, 2011 -- Work in Progress Round Up: MOREMOREMORE