"Moorish" sweater

"Moorish" sweater in progress
Originally uploaded by Asplund

I'm on a short break from my twined knitting; it's a lot of fun but so time-consuming I needed to start something that's quicker to knit.

A few years ago I knitted a sweater based on a vest design by Kim Hargreaves, "Moor" in a A Yorkshire Fable, adding sleeves and changing the all-black cuffs. I was happy with it but it's too small - especially after I replaced smoking with eating!

Fortunately, I always had a tendency to make sweaters slightly too big, so I can still wear almost all my old sweaters.

"Moor" sweater knitted in 2006

The other week I discovered Norwegian Rauma Finull in beautiful shades of brown at my LYS and it dawned on me it was high time to make a new Moor sweater. There are more modifications (in terms of both pattern shapes and colour sequences) in this one, so I think I'll rename it Moorish.

I managed to knit a few inches yesterday in glorious knitting company: borntoknit, entill, katarina, wynja , anna and toveb. Thanks for a wonderful afternoon!

Just before meeting up with the other knitters I went to an opening of an exhibition at Moderna museet: a truly impressive, retrospective exhibition of my top favorite artist Siri Derkert. There were many things I hadn't seen before and many paintings and collages I've only seen reproduced in black and white. I was quite taken, just as strongly as when her art first overwhelmed me when I was a teenager and saw her portraits. A very good day, yesterday.

Twined sleeve in progress

Twined mosaic
Originally uploaded by Asplund

Here are four photos of the sleeve to show the distribution of pattern shapes. The increases are on each side of a vertical band with "o" shapes, and my plan is to add more of the same shapes as the sleeve grows wider.

No more time to write - got to knit!

Sleeve patterns

Twined sleeves: testing different patterns
Originally uploaded by Asplund

I'm happy with the cuffs, but as I was knitting the sleeve to the left I suddenly had another idea, a modification of the big central shape.

After knitting my new idea (actually a shape I tried and liked in my first twined sweater, visible in the background) and comparing the two sleeves I've decided to go for the version to the right.

What makes me prefer it is the single focal point at the centre, the little "o" shape; the version to the left would have had four of them and looked more messy for want of a better word.

This is a good example of one way blogging has influenced my knitting. A couple of years ago I would simply have frogged and reknitted without documenting my choices in either words or photos, not even for myself - and to think that there are others who are interested in the process behind my knits! You, that is :) Thanks for following my knitting adventures! Having readers is inspiring in itself, you know.

Sleeve cuffs

Twined sleeve cuff
Originally uploaded by Asplund

The sleeve cuffs are finished and after a couple of false starts I've more or less decided how to change the cuff pattern into a similar but different sleeve pattern.

Funny how things change. As mentioned in a previous post this is a project I let hibernate for a year and a half, but now I can't remember last time a project engaged me this much! I knew my feelings about it would change eventually; it was just a matter of waiting for it to happen. And knitting other things meanwhile :)

Thanks for kind words about the new look of my blog! The background is my first twined sweater, knitted in 2008. The photos of me knitting in my aunt's garden when Bessy the Westie wanted to play with her instead were taken in 2006. Time flies! Actually, I remember both what sweater I was knitting (which is why I know what year it was) and the audio book I was listening to: unintentionally hilarious Tarzan of the Apes, an awful book and an awful reading of it. The combination was simply irresistible!

Trees nearly done

Twined sweater in progress
Originally uploaded by Asplund

I'm getting near the tree tops and it's high time to decide how to knit the sleeves: this will be a seamless raglan sweater, so I will have to think of a sleeve pattern to blend with both the back and front and with the raglan shape.

A tree would be too big, so it will probably some combination of geometric shapes.

Tiny needles

Tiny needles
Originally uploaded by Asplund

Yesterday at Nordiska museet you could try knitting with old needles. I do like thin needles, but these were too thin to be comfortable to work with - and still they were among the thickest of the needles you could borrow!

Here they are next to my 3 mm (US 2½) needles for comparison.