Saturday 11 April 2015

Good Friday

was Best Possible Friday. I sat indoors all day with yet another sweater project - that's what terrible weather is for. About a year ago I bought some wonderful wool at Wålstedts, different shades of green and brown, and all of a sudden I knew exactly how I wanted to use it: a top-down sweater with buttons. A kind of top-down green and brown period?



Knitting top-down is perfect as I want to use as much green wool as possible for the yoke and gradually make it browner. Brioche stitch would be nice, but I don't think there's enough for a whole sweater. Fortunately, there's half-brioche stitch (slipping the purl stitches with a yarnover every second row instead of every row) which doesn't devour as much yarn.

Even better than finding the right use for the wool is finding a woolly home for five buttons my mother gave me a few years ago.



Wearing it I might resemble one of John Bauer's (1882-1918) trolls, which I don't mind at all. Here's one of his illustrations for a childhood favourite fairy tale.

Thursday 2 April 2015

Adding some collar (horrible pun, but couldn't resist)

As mentioned, I did have a few metres left of the greenish-brown-with-confetti tweed after I finished the sweater. Wearing it I thought the collar was slightly too wide and low, so I decided to use my leftovers to pick up stitches and see if there was enough for an extra welt with thinner needles. There was! I'm not sure how well shows in the photo, but there's quite a difference between before and after blocking.


It was quite a thriller. Here's what's left of the wool now:
Don't spend it all at once.

Thanks for your comments!

Karon asked whether the design is my own and if there's a pattern available. It is my own, but I improvised (with some calculation involved) so I'm afraid there's no pattern.
Ron asked how the body and sleeves are finished: I cast off knitting I-cords, which worked well.
Christine: perhaps the Easter bunny will bring me some pearls!

Happy Easter, everyone! Thanks for the lovely daffodils, Barbara!