I’ve just finished knitting my Hitofude cardigan (by designer Hiroko Fukatsu), so some showing off in the garden was definitely called for.  (Try to ignore the weeds, but look at the beautiful pink-edged leaves on the beech tree!)

I really enjoyed knitting this.  The lace pattern is very easy to memorise, so once I had done a couple of repeats of the lace it became a very relaxing knit.

It is the way that the cardigan is constructed that makes the pattern so interesting.  Hitofude means “one brush stroke” in Japanese, and the whole garment is knit in one “yarn stroke” in one piece.  You start with the sleeves and back, then the sleeves are seamed together and joined with the neckline and waist at the same time.  The lower body then flows from the waist with gradual increases so that the bottom hem is full and the cardigan has a lovely drapey open front.  It’s really clever, but not over-complex.

The finished garment is lovely, and that seems to be true of all the other finished garments that other knitters have posted pictures of on Ravelry.

I used The Uncommon Thread‘s merino fingering weight yarn Uncommon Everyday in the gorgeous grey/brown colourway “Toast”. The yarn was great to work with, and I’m hoping that this will be a cardigan that I will wear a lot over the summer. I highly recommend both the yarn and the pattern.

As with most of the things I knit, the memories of the things I was doing while I knitted it are bound up in the garment. This has been an on-off knit over the last few months and when will remind me of: my friend’s baby Sam excitedly shouting “BAAALLLL” at my ball of wool when I knitted on the train with him and his mum (a knitter in the making, perhaps?); the combination of guilt and blissful relaxation as I snatched a few minutes to knit in between unpacking sessions after my house move; TV highlights of Spring including the excellent comedy “Rev”, spring farming show “Lambing Live” and “The Great British Sewing Bee”; and the days lengthening with every stitch.