Oxbow Cardigan – Work in Progress

Now that I’ve introduced myself just a bit, let’s talk about my current WIP, the Oxbow Cardigan by Andrea Mowry.

Once I start sharing my past projects you will see I’m a bit fan of her patterns. I think this is the 6th pattern of hers that I’ve actually completed and I’ve purchased another 4 of 5 that I haven’t gotten to for various reasons. Some because I was too ambitious at the time and not as ready as I thought I was for the level of pattern. Some because I got side tracked… you know how it is.

Anyway, I bought this pattern back in 2020 with the intention to knit it for myself. I think in the end though I ended up purchasing yarn for her Spark Cardigan and worked on that instead. A piece I absolutely LOVE and wear once the cold weather hits us here in Ottawa, Canada. I’ll share that one with you as well eventually.

Back to Oxbow. I decided to knit this one finally really because I wanted to knit something for my 18 month old daughter and it just so happens that there is a pattern included in the bundle with toddler sizing. I’m a SAHM and really trying to work through my stash instead of being tempted to buy new yarn. I found a synthetic bulky weight grey yarn I originally had bought aaaages ago when I first started knitting. I attempted to knit a blanket with it but honestly HATED the way it was working up so I frogged it and never looked at it again, until now. I figure because it’s synthetic it should wash and wear well for a wild toddler.

I’m doing size 2 which is intended for a 2 year old. I actually swatched this one (so proud of myself, I never do this step but I really need to!) and discovered that although she recommends US 11 for the main fabric, a US 10.5 needle would work much better for me. Since this is a toddler size the arms worked up really quick. The increases made it a bit difficult for me to understand how to stay in pattern but once I saw how the pattern repeated it was simple to work back and figure out where to start.

The body has also been working up really quickly. It’s an easy pattern to check in with regularly to make sure it’s looking right. Not too difficult so I can actually pay attention to the show I’m watching while knitting but it not being boring and repetitive like a stockinette knit.

I was getting a bit overwhelmed with the part where you need to decrease for the neck/yoke shaping while setting up to attach the arms but I watched this video on how to stay in pattern while shaping and it got the scaries right out of my head. Just knowing that I wasn’t going to screw it all up helped me to just get on with it and get out of my head. The other thing that helped is once the arms are attached you’re doing raglan decreases so you don’t reallllly need to match the pattern exactly to the body since the decreases will kind of divide things up. That’s my theory anyway.

Getting the arms attached was a bit awkward and hard for me to visualize so what I did instead was worked the body to the gap for the arms, put my arm stitches that were on hold onto the body needle and continued following the pattern. Having the arms in place and held by my cord made it soo much easier than trying to pick up the stitches while trying to hold the arms on at the same time.

Others have also mentioned that they found it very confusing to work both decreases at the same time and keep it tracked. But honestly it’s not that bad. I’ve been putting tally marks beside the neck decreases for the numbers of rows that have gone by and a simple check mark beside when the decrease is made. I’m doing the same system beside the raglan decrease section so it’s very clear what is what. I plan to check in regularly to make sure I’m on track.

So far this pattern has been going really smoothly. Knitting in the toddler size has been a good trial run so far and I plan to knit one for myself when this is completed. So far so good!