It began with the purchase of THIS yarn on a trip out to Minot, ND to visit my brother and She-to-Whom-He's-FINALLY-Proposed (yay!) And continued with an awesome sweater pattern by the talented Ms. Ysolda Teague. At first there was much rejoicing, although rather less eating of minstrels.
What you can't tell from the horrible photography, is that this sweater is the most perfect heathery-purply-dark-pink. It has a lovely wooly hand and terrific structure in the knitted fabric. It's not scratchy at all, despite not being the softest yarn ever, and is, in short, the perfect marriage of material to pattern.
What you CAN tell from the above photograph is that I suck at taking my own self seriously. Notice the way the back of the sweater is twice the size of the front? Yeah, the back is 4 sizes too big...and the front is a size too small. Allow me to digress... I teach (frequently, actually) a class at my local yarn store, cleverly entitled: Fixing Your Mistakes. In this class, I admonish EVERYONE to ALWAYS make a gauge swatch AND to WASH and BLOCK that swatch BEFORE embarking on large scale knitting adventures. Heck, I even believe in swatching! It's not empty sermons week after week, I'm preaching the good word of kntting!! Aparently, I am only preaching, and not doing anything resembling listening.
I knit a quick swatch for this project, got a rough idea of gauge, and - upon reading that this pattern grows enormously in length, thus shrinking slightly in width - set out upon my merry way figuring I had mostly the right size. Notice all the imprecise language in that sentence? Yeah, well, it leads to imprecise gauge, which leads to yet another freaking sweater that doesn't fit!! ARRRGH! Seriously, you'd think I'd learn. It's not like I haven't done this before. And no, we're not going to talk about it. All we'll say is that my previous attempts, while in no way resembling the sweater I intended to knit, have found good homes nonetheless. This thought will sustain me as I rip this latest abomination back to whence in came.
Take THAT, sweater curse! Maybe my relationship with sweater knitting is star-cross'd and ill-fated. Sweaters are stupid anyway.
So...I started a vest! See?
That's Milly. Isn't she beautiful? I'm in love with the latticework pattern. It's just the right amount of delicate and interesting. The yarn is pretty fabulous, too. This humble vest marks the first time I've ever used the recommended yarn for a pattern.
Milly is designed by none other than Ms. Linden Down, whose patterns trend heavily toward the classic and elegant. They all look like something Audrey Hepburn would wear, and are flattering in such a way that they will make you look like Audrey Hepburn. I love pretty much everything she's designed, and her patterns are well-written. (Linden and are are secretly forming a mutual-admiration society. I should probably tell her...) This particular pattern is a little involved, and may or may not have been ripped back twice in the same evening before I decided that I really should pay attention. We shall not speak of gauge.
Lastly, seeing as I have decided to forever put aside the knitting of sweaters, this is probably not the droid you're looking for.
At least it's pretty...
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