I finished my Hirne cardigan early in the month and have hardly taken it off since. It is beautiful!

This cardigan, designed by Kate Davies, has the most lovely and understated features. Each detail of the design has been thoughtfully worked out and they combine in the most pleasing manner. I find it very peaceful, both to knit and to look at. Kate says that, in Scots, ‘hirne’ means ‘a cosy nook or corner’. It is a very apt name for a very cosy cardigan:

I used Kate’s yarn, Ooskit, a 100% wool, which is DK, undyed and worsted spun. This is the lightest shade, Riach, which is described as a pale, silver grey, but which I find is slightly more oatmeal than grey. This shade is very much outside of my usual palette of bright jewel colours. I worried that it would be a bad choice and wouldn’t work with anything in my wardrobe, but I’ve been surprised by how much I like this neutral shade.

I started knitting Hirne in mid-September, when I was still on sick leave and both my brain and body were operating at half-mast. I needed something calming and simple to knit. Although one might argue that the lace patterning on the yoke adds complexity, I trusted Kate to write a pattern which would fit and which would flow, and where all of the details would already be worked out. (And I hoped that by the time I was up to the yoke, I would be feeling better.)

The pattern is designed to be knitted in the round and steeked. I decided to knit it flat instead. This involved a few very minor changes, but is really an easy conversion. This turns out to be the only modification I made. Everything else was knitted exactly to pattern.

I wrote in a previous post that I struggled a bit with choosing the size, and in particular, I kept second-guessing myself while kitting the sleeves, which I worried were too tight. I ended up, after doing a bit of frogging and re-knitting on the sleeves, following the pattern exactly and I think the fit turned out really well. I made a size 5, 43.5 inches, and the blocked cardigan is bang-on gauge, which gives me zero ease.

One of the most interesting features is the way the buttonbands are done in the front. It uses an i-cord bind-off and incorporated i-cord buttonholes, which are nearly invisible. It is a new technique to me and I really like the look.

You may have noticed that there are no buttons on my Hirne; I haven’t yet found any that I like. But as you can see, the cardigan doesn’t look like it is missing something because the buttonholes are not in your face. In fact, I won’t worry if I don’t end up finding buttons I like, because I am very much enjoying this cardigan the way it is.

Happy Sunday, everyone!