Stitch a Textured Cardigan with Nydia

I bought the Nydia Pullover by Vanessa Smith when it came out, though I haven’t knit it yet (my pattern stash is almost as big a problem as my yarn stash!). I was sure that I wrote about how much I loved if back when it came out, but I guess I didn’t share that one one with. If you’re more into pullovers, be sure to check that one out on Ravelry, too.

But now that there’s a cardigan version, I’m probably going to have to buy that one, too.

The Nydia cardigan uses the same pretty textured lace pattern that from a distance looks sort of like linen stitch. It’s easy to knit and works up pretty quickly in DK weight yarn. The pattern is a top down raglan with lateral braided edgings separating the ribbing from the main body stitch pattern.

This design is totally customizable. It’s written with options for a cropped length or standard full length, and with 3/4 or long sleeves. It has 12 size options ranging from a chest measurement of 29.85 inches to 63.25 inches, but the pattern also includes instructions for customizing the chest measurement to your specifications. It’s meant to be worn with zero to 2 inches of negative ease (meaning the sweater is either the same size or up to 2 inches smaller than your full bust measurement).

The pattern is so pretty and it looks somehow dressed up and casual at the same time.

Now I’m just going to need a worsted weight version to be my wear all the time when I’m in the house sweater. I’m sure I could figure it out from all the size options and mods available in this fun pattern.

You can learn more and grab your copy of the pattern from Ravelry.

[Photo: Vanessa Smith.]

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations.

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind.

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca.

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl.

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions.

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic).

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only.

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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