Clap Your Hands – Yards of Happiness

Despite being a little under the weather lately (I can’t tell if it’s allergies or a cold) I’ve been in a really good mood. Work is the same and nothing special has really happened but I’ve just been happy and I’m not complaining about that. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been working with one of my favorite yarns lately?
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I could write a love letter to Madelinetosh and all of her amazing colorways. One of my favorites it ‘Clap Your Hands,’ this is it in DK weight and you may remember it from my Under the Graffiti Bridge cardigan. It’s like a beautiful rainbow that’s a little gritty and dirty. I love this color. I want to be a yarn dyer that’s as awesome as Madelinetosh is to me.
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I’m working on another The Rain Outside shawl (view my first and second) as a gift for a friend and decided to use Clap Your Hands as the main color and a matte black of Berroco Weekend in DK weight. I’m loving the contrast.

The black is so strong against the white/rainbow and the lace panels are all black. I’m contemplating doing the last panel is a super bright pink but I think I may just leave it as is. I always fear I don’t have enough of the contrast color but it’s making it’s way to the end. I have to trust myself more and stop worrying. I’m so excited to get this one off my needles (should be finished over the weekend)…
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If I could just get Cher to stop sitting on it. We shall see. Have a great weekend!

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March 24, 2017 by IamDWJ Categories: Berroco, Cher, Color, Cowls & Scarves, Knitting, Madelinetosh, multi, My Dogs, neutral (black/grey/white), Stitching Status, YarnTags: #yardsofhappiness, Clap Your Hands, knitting, Madelinetosh, rainbow yarn, rainbows, shawl knitting, The Rain Outside Shawl, Yarn 12 Comments

Happy Monday! Can I say I didn’t expect all of the conversation last week on my post about what motivates my knitting my post about what motivates my knitting! It’s great to hear that I am not alone in being a knitting hermit. LOL Hermits unite…virtually! I loved the conversation it sparked and hopefully we do more of that. I also heard a few folks say they’re also interested in my yarn storage and stash so I’ll try to work on more posts exploring what my knitting life is like. Today I’m sharing a finished object that flew off my needles because I loved this yarn, Madelinetosh DK Twist in Clap Your Hands. Remember I said rainbows are my neutral and this is an ultimate neutral cardigan for me, I named it Under the Graffiti Bridge after that Prince movie and album.
Graffiti bridge cardigan
The pattern is the Off-Rib cardigan, one I’ve had in my queue forever but never figured out what yarn to use. It calls for worsted weight but I ended up substituting it out for dk weight on larger needles to make a lighter sweater. I’m so glad I did it.

I also decided instead of doing a fitted cropped sleeve to bell the sleeves out (I simply replaced all the decreases with increases and this is what you get). Bell sleeves are a bit on trend right now and I haven’t knit a single sweater yet with a bell sleeve – which is a favorite of mine despite being a pain to fit into a jacket.
Graffiti bridge cardigan
My hope is that by knitting this with a dk weight yarn to create a lighter fabric plus the bell sleeves I’ll be able to wear this into the spring almost as a light jacket.

For the closures I went with small lucite toggle buttons so that they didn’t compete with the pattern the yarn made. I think it was the best choice. I also had to make crochet chains to make the loops and sew them to the inside of the cardigan, which was something new for me. I’ve got to tighten the bottom loop a bit but otherwise I love the fun opening and asymmetry to the shape of the cardigan. I wore this to brunch on Sunday and my husband even complimented it on me, he said he liked how it was different that a normal cardigan.
Graffiti bridge cardigan
I love this cardigan and am already plotting out making it in a worsted weight too just to see the difference – but that will have to wait! So I modified this pattern a bit, what types of modifications do you tend to make when knitting?