Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post #3186: The new favourite (sweater)
As evidenced by the photo up top from the google photo archive (May 15, 2015), I have been knitting for nearly five years. This was my first finished item; a washcloth made of cotton. I thought cotton washcloths were a natural starting place in knitting as they are in crochet, but it turns out that cotton is much harder to knit evenly than stretchier fibers like wool. By my very next project my knitting had improved in every single way.
That year I was a knitting fiend and went on to make many things, including my first and only completed knit sweater (in fingering weight yarn with size 3 needles). It fit *okay* and I still occasionally throw it on around the house, but the sleeves are too long and because of the softness of the fibre the buttons don’t stay done up. Since they I have made attempts at another sweater for myself and one for Brian – both of which languish in the unfinished objects pile for various reasons. The sweater for me was flat knit which means knitting all the pieces separately and then seaming them together. I got to the point where all the pieces were knit, but they turned out to be different sizes and so! In the case of Brian’s sweater, the sleeves are different widths and I need to frog one back and redo it with greater care.
But, as I so often do, instead of finishing one of the many projects on the go, I started a new sweater this fall. The pattern is Mycroft by Isabell Kraemer (I love all her patterns so much), and the yarn is nothing special – a basic black worsted weight. But even though this is a straightforward pull over, I am totally in love with it and have worn it five days out of the last seven. It’s the perfect garment for these chilly late-winter days, goes with skirts or pants, and it fits!
While it is a bit oversized, I like the look of it that way, and it’s so far not stretching out at all beyond what I blocked it to. The main issue for me is that it stay on my shoulders, and so far, so good. This is definitely my favourite me-made sweater knit or crochet, to date!
Because I’ve had such success with Isabell Kramer patterns (I’ve made a couple of cowls and the first sweater I ever knit was also one of hers), I am going to move on pretty quickly to the Chauncey using a fingering weight four-ply wool from John Arbon textiles. The skein on the left represents the main colour, the darker “pomegranate” shade will be used for the colourwork in the yoke. I plan to make the sleeves 3/4 length to give the sweater a lighter look and knit a size smaller than this most recent one.
I haven’t started this next sweater yet though because I had to order new needle tips for my interchangeables. I am forever losing size 3, 4, and 5 tips – I suppose because they are the ones I use most often and then they drown in the bottom of project bags, never to be seen again. While waiting for the new tips to arrive, I am working on a palate-cleansing infinity scarf made from wool my Mom gave me for my birthday (and it will indeed be a gift back to her since she loves connected scarves that don’t get lost by falling off).
Though sweaters take some time to complete (the Mycroft was a three-month project) they are the most satisfying to finish – so although I recognize a sweater in fingering weight is going to be a bit of a slog, I’m excited to get it on the needles next week.
Red Cedar 
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