I love my Hirne cardigan so much that I decided to knit another one. This time, I chose to knit with mohair, in a knock-your-socks-off glorious orange-y red! This cardigan pops!
In fact, it pops so much, that it is very difficult to capture in a photograph. Suffice it to say, if you saw it in real life, it would have you smiling. It’s hard to resist a good red!
Hirne is a fantastic pattern by Kate Davies. As with the last time, I knitted it flat (back and forth in one piece, rather than in the round and steeked). This is a fairly straight-forward modification.
I was worried that the textured pattern in the yoke, made with twisted stitches, wouldn’t show up in the mohiar, but it looks fantastic.
For comparison, below is my original Hirne, knitted in Kate Davies Ooskit yarn. It is a really lovely neutral knit, and I have been wearing it almost constantly since I finished it at the beginning of the year. (See my blog post on the first Hirne here.)
I love the way that you can make the same pattern twice and yet by experimenting with yarn and colour, you can make something unique.
I rarely knit the same pattern twice, and almost never with a garment. I am not sure that I have done so since I knit Audrey by Kim Hargreaves for myself and then for Emma over 10 years ago (see my posts here and here). One advantage of knitting the same pattern is that the project flew off the needles: it took me four months to knit the first Hirne and six weeks to knit this one!
For this version, I used 10 balls of Gepard Garn Kid Seta in shade 1008, which I purchased at Ulstedet in Copenhagen (blogged about here). I held the yarn double throughout.
I have always worn bright colours, especially red, and I gravitate more and more to them as I get older. They are really good at mood-boosting. I find that this red looks good with so many things in my wardrobe. I know it will get worn often.
It is amazingly light (it weighs in at under 250 ounces, or less than half a pound). This means it is just the right thing to throw in a suitcase. And for such a lightweight garment, it is surprisingly warm and cozy.
Its been a beautiful Bank Holiday Weekend here in England! I hope you have had some sunshine and maybe a pop of colour where you are.
Wow! It does look fantastic and goes with so much of your wardrobe. I love a red cardigan. I was surprised to see the detail in the picture after reading you had used mohair. Never would have guessed. Thanks for sharing about the pattern. I just may have to tackle a cardigan one of these days.
Thanks! I was pleasantly surprised that the twisted stitch pattern showed up as well as it did in the mohair. And I love wearing red!
Both these cardigans are lovely and this one is scintillating in the mohair! Well done!
Thank you so much, Leah! I’ve been struggling with knitting this year, and it feels really good to have these two cardigans work out just right.
Absolutely beautiful! Looks fantastic with that sundress! I love both your Hirnes and now I want to make one!
Thank you for commenting, Carrie. I like both of these so much, and I am getting lots of wear out of them, too. You won’t regret making one!
I love how vibrant this red is.. chilli red and it looks perfect on you… makes me want to learn how to make one too haha
The shop had about 10 shades of red mohair, and I remember spending forever trying to pick the absolutely perfect one. I think I hit it with this one.
❤️
Thanks!
Love this on you. Thanks for reminding me of this design and showing me what a difference a vibrant colour makes. It was already in my favourites and your mohair version convinces me that my favourite DK, Rowan Felted Tweed, would work well.
Hi Beth, Rowan Felted Tweed is one of my favorites too, and it comes in such luscious colours. I love it. I bet it would work.
It is gorgeous! That red is so vibrant and very glattering 🙂
Thank you!
*flattering!
Hee hee! I think that “glattering” should definitely be a word.
Me too! Maybe like flattering but with a different angle somehow?
What a beautiful colour, I would wear the heck out of that as well.
Thank you. I’ve had it on nearly every day. Red is such a cheerful colour. It really picks me up.
Both of your Hirnes are beautiful! I would like to make it without the skeet as you did – could you please share how you adjusted the chart ? thank you!
Hi Robyn! The pattern has you knit this cardigan in the round and then steek it (cut the fabric). I have steeked before and don’t find it awful (although still fairly nerve-wracking) but for this pattern, I felt that it would be easy enough to knit it back and forth. The pattern calls for 9 steek stitches, these are extra stitches which are cut and trimmed away in the process of making the steek. If you are knitting back and forth, you don’t need to add these extra 9 stitches, so when you cast on, you want to have the total number of stitches required for your size, minus 9 stitches. Then, instead of joining in the round, I started the ribbing right away, k2,p2 all the way across, ending with k2. I then followed all instruction as is, ignoring the steek stitches and knitting back and forth.
I knitted both sleeves separately, in the round, and then joined the sleeves into the body as indicated in the pattern. When it was time to start the lace pattern on the yoke, I put stitch markers between every repeat for ease – remember that you won’t be working steek stitches at beginning or end of each row. If you were knitting in the round, then you would read each row of the chart from right to left. Since you will be knitting back and forth, all odd-number rows (right side facing) are worked by reading the chart from right to left, and all even numbered rows are worked by reading the chart from left to right AND reversing the key, so you will be purling those stitches marked knit and knitting the stitches marked purl. This sounds much harder than it is, as there is very little pattern worked on the reverse rows which are mostly just purled. You will be able to read the knitting pretty easily, I think.
The only thing I had to get my head around was how to make sure that the decreases leaned the right way, since they are worked on the purl rows. When it calls for a ssk (which is a left-leaning decrease) you will need to ssp and when it calls for a k2tog (which is a right-leaning decrease) you will need to do a p2tog (I found the ssp sort of difficult to handle, so I ended up substituting with a p2togtbl – purl 2 together through the back loop). SO, if you have already purchased the pattern, and you look at row 24, you would p8, p2togtbl, k1, p2tog, p8, k1. Again, this is much easier than it sounds, and you can do a small swatch of the pattern first to make sure the decreases look good on the right side of the work.
Once the body of the sweater was done, I didn’t have to cut a steek; instead I just picked up the button band stitches as normal and worked the button bands.
I hope this makes sense. Kate’s patterns are usually really clear, and the engineering it takes to do this is pretty straight-forward. If you don’t feel super confident, I wouldn’t work this in mohair, as it is difficult to rip. If you have any troubles, feel free to contact me and ask questions. It may be easier to do on Ravelry, if you are on it – my username is kellydawn. If not, pop me a question here; I may be delayed in responding, but I will see it and get to it. Good luck!
Kelly