Shifty 2.0 Zippered Cardigan
Pattern: Shifty by Andrea Mowray
Yarn: Spincycle Yarns Dyed in the Wool
Zipper: 24” separating zipper
Ribbon: Jacquard ribbon 7/8”
I don’t know what I was thinking, but I decided to knit another Shifty sweater. Luckily this time it wasn’t nearly as much of a saga as the first one. I learned so much from my first go and am here to share my tips and details on how I modified this into a zippered cardigan. I really love how this version of Shifty turned out. I am so much happier with all the colors and the fit. The only thing I would change if I were to do it all again was to shorten the overall length to 22” instead of 24”. 24” works well for some cardigans but on this one it looks a bit long on me. I will say I prefer a longer sweater to a shorter one. I think my favorite part of this sweater is the jacquard ribbon lining the zipper and covering the steek edge. I just love the color and the print, it’s a nice little surprise hiding on the inside.
Modifications:
Collar and hem- I knit the collar flat so CO 1 extra stitch for a symmetrical collar. I placed my BOR marker initially in the middle of the back to be able to achieve the short rows as written meaning the short rows were also worked flat. Once the short rows were completed, I knit to the end of the round CO 5 sts for my steek and finished my knit round using Color A. Followed directions for increase 1, increasing 1 less stitch to account for the extra stitch I had CO initially. I ended my increase rnd at the BOR marker which was in the middle of the back. I then cut both Color A &B and moved my stitches back to the beginning of my steek stitches and made that the new BOR and continued working the pattern as written. For the hem I simply added an extra stitch to make the edging even on both sides.
Size Modifications- gauge is 24sts per 4” so to achieve size 34” bust I followed directions for size 1 until 4th increase. At 4th increase only increase every 7 sts a total of 24 times, then every 8 sts 16 times for a total of 40 sts increased. This made for a nicer fit in the bust and the body.
Length- I added length to the sweater to get a total length of about 24” which is a full-length sweater for me. It’s a bit on the long side, but I prefer longer vs shorter. This time I used 3 yarns, so I did a total of 7 repeats of blips before changing colors. This made my color changes different than in the instructions, but the pattern is so simple it didn’t make a difference other than in yarn yardage.
Sleeves- I followed the decreases as written up until the 6th decrease when I then started decreasing every little blip round until the cuff. Because my blips were off I just followed the body pattern knitting each color 7 times adding back in color B for the last 2 blips.
Steek- I did a classic 5 stitch steek and reinforced it by a machine. Since the yarn is technically a superwash wool I didn’t want to risk it. I also cut back some of the steek to decrease bulk and felt a machine steek would hold up well. I double reinforced it by not only sewing it on row 2 and 4 but went back and sewed down the middle of rows 1 and 5 since I cut at row 2 and 4.
