Hoping for Hopsmere

I’ve been working on the same pattern for quite a while now. The working name I have for it is Cognita, and I know I’ll be writing about it on here soon enough, but that’s not for today. No, I need to take a break from writing that one. I’m finding it hard to “proofread” knit and check my pattern for errors because I’ve now knit it so many times that I start accidentally doing it from memory. That would be a very good way to miss mistakes.

In the meantime, I already crocheted a toy hammock for my daughter’s room that I plan to hang soon, but that didn’t take me long at all. It only kept me occupied for a couple of days. For a longer distraction, I needed a much bigger project, and there’s one I’d had in mind for quite a while – the Hopsmere Cardigan from Red Dead Online.

My partner’s absolute favorite video game is Red Dead Redemption II. For a while, we were both playing on some Red Dead RP gaming servers before it became too much of a time commitment. One of his characters (named Sanderson) wears a sweater that my partner has always liked. It’s very cozy looking button-up with a high neck and cabling. Here’s an image I snagged off Reddit (source).

This is actually the second time I’ve attempted the sweater for him. It was probably around a year ago now the last time I tried. I got all the measurements I needed, ordered my yarn, I cast on… and almost immediately found out that I wanted something bulkier. At that point, I had a bunch of lovely wool yarn that I really wanted to use, so I found another project for it and started in on that. I did go ahead and order the bulky yarn, which spent a very long time sitting in my closet while I worked on other things, including revising Cognita. That meant it was ready and waiting for me, and now it’s time.

I’m not very far into it yet. I cast on the back and have worked up about five inches. Like all my projects, I’m keeping track of it on Ravelry as I go. You’re welcome to follow along with me and see the progress pictures I’ll be posting along the way.

This pattern uses Brava Bulky yarn from Knit Picks and We Crochet.