Tuesday 18 August 2009

Recycling

"The Fan" is one of several intriguing designs in Marianne Isager's gem of a book Japanese Inspired Knits.

Increasingly (ha ha...) eager to knit it I suddenly remembered an almost finished vest in a suitcase in my mother's basement (sounds like an episode of “Prime Suspect”) that I’ve been doing my best to forget for some two years, but was suddenly happy to remember now. A yarn bonus!

The vest looks better than I thought – but not good enough to finish. I tried it on, but even though it is actually comfortable I'm not likely to wear it, partly because I prefer wearing wool to bourette silk, material I hadn't worked with before and was curious about (and I couldn't resist the colour). What's more, I don’t like how it turned out enough to give it to someone else. It's a good thing I didn't weave in the loose ends!


Would you believe it, even though this yarn is nothing like what the instructions call for and I used slightly thinner needles to knit a swatch, I got the right gauge! What could I do but cast on the real thing?

For photos of a beautiful finished "Fan" cardigan, check out Dances with wool.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How resourceful! I have only recycled a sweater once and then didn't use much of the wool. The colour is beautiful as is the pattern. The border on the vest is very interesting - you should write a book on borders, Asplund. I would be first in line to buy it.
Ron in Mexico

ylva said...

The Fan i lovely. Made me curious about M.Isager. Wow! what patterns! I think I have to buy a book of her design.

Mia stickar said...

Kul att hitta din blogg! Så mycke fint du gör!

Asplund said...

Ron: Actually, I think I found that border in one of my knitting books! (It looks like Starmore's Aberlady in "Fishermen's Sweaters" so I guess I got it from there - I may have modified it.) I do like finishing touches, I must say, like well chosen borders.

Ylva: yes, isn't Isager a marvel? I was thinking about starting some kind of Isager fan club on Ravelry, but of course there already was one.

Mia: tack! Det var roligt att hitta din blogg också. Tänk vad många stickare man plötsligt kommer i kontakt med. Och grisbilderna är som sagt ljuvliga!