The “Sand in my shoes” cardigan is dedicated to the memory of all those lovely vacancies spend at the sea – and hoping this will become possible again soon …

It can be worked with color blocks, stripes, or a combination of both, whatever you prefer. This means that you can use whatever amounts of leftover colors you have, and even use them up completely as the cardigan is worked top-down.

Difficulty rating: ** out of *****

Overview
The cardigan is worked top-down, seamlessly, in the following order:

• Work back neck part of collar (in two halves) in Seed stitch.
• Work fronts to underarm (in two halves), continuing the Seed stitch edges.
• Starting at the top, work back up to underarm, beginning with short rows in Seed stitch on neck and shoulders (this is the only part which really needs concentration). Continue with complete rows in Stockinette with a few decreases.
• Work sleeves in color blocks/ stripes, with cuffs in Seed stitch.
• Join fronts and back. Work lower body including button band in the same color sequence as the sleeves, optionally with additional color blocks/ stripes at the bottom. The cardigan features an (optional) A line shape and ends with a Seed stitch hem.

Needle size and gauge
4,0mm/ 20 sts x 32 rows on 10cm in Stockinette; 3,5mm for sleeve cuffs and hem.

We are heading towards Spring, so you might prefer using a more lightweight yarn:
For stitch gauge 22, simply choose a bigger size (e.g. work cardigan in size L for actual body size M, like I did for my sample, as I am a tight knitter).
And in case you are even thinking of using Fingering Weight yarn, please have a look at my “Gravity of color” which has a similar construction.

Yarn
For the longer version, you will need 1200/ 1300/ 1400/ 1500/ 1600 m of a DK yarn which gives you gauge.
100-140m less per 10cm less overall length.

For the blue/ green sample, I have used 5,5 skeins of Valentina Wollante BFL Masham 240 (75% Bluefaced Leicester, 25% Masham, 240m/ 100g): 2 undyed skeins, 4 different blues and greens and a leftover of a mustard yellow.

The pink/ brown sample which is shorter has needed exactly 500g Skudderia Merino DK (220g/ 100m) in 5 rose/ brown shades.