From Sheep to Sweater, Part 3: Meet the Cottage Garden Cardigan!

From raw merino fleece to a handspun, handknit cardigan

The final chapter of my woolly adventure

Well, I did it.

I turned a pile of dirty sheep's wool into an actual, wearable sweater!

If you've been following along with my Sheep to Sweater adventure, you'll remember that I started with a raw merino fleece, learned to wash and card the wool, and began spinning my very own yarn.

You can catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them.

And now, at long last, I present to you...

The Cottage Garden Cardigan!

 

Patience? What's That?

You might reasonably assume that I spun all the yarn I needed before beginning to knit my sweater.

Ha! Patience is not my strong suit.

I couldn't wait to get started.

I had visions of a cozy, rustic cardigan made from my very own handspun merino. So I cast on, beginning at the neckline with a cheerful pink-and-cream yoke, and worked my way down.

Did I have a pattern? Not exactly.

Did I know precisely how the finished sweater would look? No ma'am.

I was making it up as I went along.

There's a musical term for this: through-composed. Rather than repeating a predetermined structure, the piece develops continuously, with new ideas emerging along the way.

That's pretty much how I approached this cardigan.

The Great Merino Shortage

The body came together beautifully. My handspun yarn was delightfully irregular — thick in some places, thin in others, with plenty of little lumps and bumps.

I loved every inch of it.

But there was one small problem.

I was running out of wool.

I had originally envisioned full-length sleeves. Lovely, cozy sleeves that would reach all the way to my wrists.

Instead, I found myself in a race between my spinning wheel and my knitting needles.

I'd spin a little merino, knit a few rows on one sleeve, spin a little more, and then work on the other sleeve to keep them even.

Back and forth. Spin, knit, spin, knit.

According to my somewhat imperfect records, I spun at least 265 grams of merino over the course of the project, from late June through September. That's more than half a pound of wool, all prepared and spun by hand!

And still, it wasn't quite enough.

Eventually, I had to accept that my full-length sleeves were going to become three-quarter-length sleeves.

A Little Color Goes a Long Way

As my precious merino supply dwindled, I began incorporating some beautiful hand-dyed yarns I'd purchased on Etsy. (shout out to Patti at Funky Yarns!)

Little flashes of pink and green appeared throughout the natural-colored wool, adding unexpected pops of color and texture.

What began as a practical solution to a yarn shortage became one of my favorite features of the sweater.

The green edging ties everything together, while the pink-and-cream yoke adds a cheerful splash of color around the neckline.

And then there's the vintage, square wooden button, which seemed just right for such a rustic garment.

Looking at the finished cardigan, I realized it reminded me of a cottage garden: a little wild, a little irregular, full of color, and entirely its own thing.

And so the Cottage Garden Cardigan got its name.

From Sheep to Sweater

When I look at my finished Cottage Garden Cardigan, I see so much more than a sweater.

I see the raw fleece I started with, the hours spent washing and carding, the yarn that was sometimes too thick and sometimes too thin, and the endless back-and-forth between my spinning wheel and knitting needles.

I see the pink and green yarns I added when my supply of merino began running low. I see the three-quarter-length sleeves that were supposed to be full-length.

And I see a garment that couldn't possibly have turned out quite this way if I'd planned every stitch in advance.

I love my rustic little cardigan.

It's very me.

Through-composed, asymmetrical, and a little lumpy.

The Adventure Continues...

Finishing the cardigan hasn't diminished my fascination with wool. Quite the opposite!

Since completing this project, I've been experimenting with four different sheep breeds — Rambouillet, Shetland, Jacob, and Merino — using wool from a shepherdess in Colorado.

I've carded and spun each one, then knitted the yarn into hats so I can compare their different textures and characteristics.

It's been fascinating to discover just how different one sheep's wool can be from another's.

But that's a story for another day.

Until then, happy knitting!

Kari

P.S. Have you ever started a knitting project without knowing exactly how it would turn out? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!