Today is partly cloudy and windy, with big puff clouds admitting bright sunbeams here and there among them. Lake Ontario has long stripes of shadow and gleaming running along the surface like roads.

I’m trying to finish a swatch of Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Springtime for a Modern Victorian summer cardigan, so I can get it soaking this afternoon. Then confirm gauge and cast on tomorrow, aiming to finish by the end of the month. The yarn is much brighter than pictured, and rather outside my colour comfort zone, but I keep liking it more and more as I work with it.

Besides checking gauge, I’ve incorporated a bit of the cable lace stitch pattern to get it memorized and gauge-stabilized before trying it in the real thing. And I’m also experimenting with edgings, both for the sides (which will be the top and bottom of the cardigan) and the cast-on/bind-off edges (which will be the fronts).

As written, the bottom edge is just a single-stitch column of stockinette along the edge of the lace, which I worry will be too unstable. Adding a two-stitch i-cord edging gives the edge more structure and resilience.

The top edge is also just stockinette, which rolls nicely to the inside, but for the sake of experimentation I tried cabling the 6 edge stitches, while slipping the edge stitch on WS rows. I really like how that turned out, so I’ll be using it on the cardigan.

I don’t love the ribbed fronts as much as I love the rest of the cardigan, so for the bind-off edge, I’m playing with using the arrowhead lace or the whole cable-lace pattern all along the row for about 12-16 rows before binding off on the wrong side. Of course, it hadn’t occurred to me yet when I cast on the swatch, so I’ll have to start a second swatch to see how this works on the cast-on edge.