A bit more than a year ago I posted about recovering from hip surgery and renewing my love affair with knitting. I didn't yet know about what life would suddenly be like. I didn't know I'd be doing physical therapy over zoom and working from home while my wonderful husband managed remote school for the kids. Amongst the home cooked meals, the bread baking, the wondering if grocery stores would have milk, flour, yeast and other necessities, at least there was knitting to help keep me sane.
From a knitting standpoint, it was a productive year. I made sweaters for myself, gifts for family, clothing for the kids. I connected online with more knitters than I had previously and even started listening to knitting podcasts. The thing I am currently missing the most is the in person knitting groups of my younger days. Before kids I spent many an evening sitting at restaurants or in people's homes, knitting, talking, and laughing. Always a lot of laughing. Even after kids there were craft nights and gatherings. Perhaps less frequent, but still there. Covid took away our gatherings and even though we have tried to fill the hole virtually, it just isn't the same. I am ready for the days of getting together with other people who just want to take some sticks and some string and make something. I want to gush about this yarn or that with people who relate. My need to spew words about knitting and yarn has led me to think about podcasting, but I know nothing about video editing (lies, I took a class on just that thing, but it was more than 20 years ago, so it has to have all changed), YouTube, and all that. And on top of that, I'm not sure who would want to listen to me go on and on about sticks and string. A lot of people deal with imposter syndrome and I sit here wondering, do I knit ENOUGH for people to care about what I am working on or what yarn I got (is that even a thing? knitting enough? no, because sometimes we have to sleep. or eat. or work). Who knows, maybe I'll give it a go sometime.
In the mean time, maybe I can spew some words here and maybe a few people will even read them. I hear blogs are out and podcasts are in. Is that true? I'd love to hear from anyone who stumbles upon my corner of the internet. Comments mean the world to me, connections are the thing I crave. Just knowing that I'm over here thinking about yarn 1000% of the time and maybe some of you are too.
So let's talk about the pink and purple sweater going on here. When I first saw the
STRIPES! sweater by
Drea Renee Knits I didn't immediately put it on my to do list. I think its partly because the sample colors are so far from my color palette but really I feel like its mostly the outdated but ingrained fashion advice that horizontal stripes make you look wider. We all just need to throw that outdated notion out of our heads right this second. But also, who cares? The more I looked at it though the more I liked the fit and the body style. I'm short waisted, she's short waisted, so a lot of the designs Andrea Mowry puts out appeal to me. The next thing that pushed me over the edge into making it was the yarn. You see, a year ago I got this yarn. More than a year now probably. I bet it was during my bed ridden over shopping. Whatever, I bought yarn. That's what happens. It came from indie dyer
Fiber For the People and it was a lucky strike, which means it was one of a kind, can't get more. It's a lovely grey purple and has flecks of a bright pink in it so subtle you can only see them up close. 
This photo doesn't do it justice. And then on down the road I got three more lucky strikes. Don't tell me I have a problem, I already know. So now I have these 4 one of a kind color ways, 1 of them DK, 2 suri alpaca, and one fingering weight and they over over here telling me they need to be together. In one project. And I'm like, ya'll, you aren't even the same weight or length, how am I going to make that happen. I was reading more about the STRIPES! pattern one day and saw how some of the stripes were sure held double and others were DK and I was suddenly inspired to make a striped sweater. Who knew, I mean stripes have never really been my thing but suddenly it had to happen. So I had the four pretties and I don't have a great photo from when they were all still skeins, but if we ignore the overly warm lighting my house has after dark, here are the 4 yarns all caked up and ready to go. The two suri alpaca on the left, the purple dk top right and the fingering weight bottom right.
But wait, 4 skeins aren't enough to do a whole sweater! Especially when the majority of them have to be held double. So I started rummaging and throwing every pink and purple skein I had next to them to see what would happen. I finally settled on a color palette that included a beautiful skein from the flowers series by The Violet Valentine called Cosmos (It's the lovely speckled light pink in the sweater) and leftover Party Punch from Southern Skeins, which I had used to make a dress top for my daughter in the fall. I still feared it wasn't quite enough yardage so I also added a beautiful light silvery mohair that leans cool, almost purple and seemed to fit right in. In hindsight I would have held it triple to make the weight closer to the other yarns, but it still works.
Did I mention we got a new dog? We adopted the large furry fellow in February, right before Oklahoma got hit by lots of nasty weather. Freezing rain, lots of snow, etc. And the only person the dog would go outside with was me. This was not the plan. The plan was for the dog to bond with my husband. Or the kids. Or both. NOPE, the dog decided I was the only person in the world he could trust. At all. He is silly. But quite lovable and fluffy. He makes quite the contrast to my little old man pug chihuahua. Ok, I've gotten slightly off topic, but he's sweet and the STRIPES sweater is still in the picture so I know you will let it slide.
I knew going in that I would probably want to weave in ends as I went or there would be hell to pay at the end. Did I listen to myself? NO. It was awful. I think it took me a week of using every bit of my normal knitting time to weave in all the ends. Every. Bit. So many ends. I did the stripe width called for in the pattern, I know other people have gone for wider stripes but I stuck with the pattern. I did the full length version, not the cropped, with bracelet length sleeves. I think the pattern is written for 3/4 length or extra long but sleeves are easy to modify to the length you like. I think I ended up adding just two extra stripes to the sleeves past what was on the body. I did not preplan the stripes. I went with what felt like it would be good next. There is no rhyme or reason to the order other than what felt right. There is no pattern. Because I was worried about running out of a color before finishing I actually worked the sleeves simultaneously with the body. Yay for interchangeable needles and lots of extra cords. I was able to knit a body stripe then move the tips to one sleeve then the other to keep everything in sync. I will say that I really loved doing it this way because even though the progress on the body felt slower, there was no sleeve island to get stuck on.  |
| Ta da! Blocking |
You can see here that I went for the relaxed neckline. The pattern presents you with some different neckline options but I wanted the slightly more relaxed and open neckline.
Its been cool enough here to wear this sweater exactly twice but its so soft and comfortable I think it will be in frequent rotation next fall. Its dk weight overall so it isn't as hot and heavy as the Weekender sweater I made last spring. I am also now having a love affair with suri alpaca. I think I would like to do an entire sweater out of suri alpaca, I just don't know if I want it to be an ultra light lace weight sweater or a held double more of a sport weight or dk weight sweater. The fabric created by holding the suri double has a wonderful softness and drape to it. I have some beautiful
Pancake and Lulu suri alpaca I received as a Christmas gift, I may use that as my starting point. It is in her Violet Icing color way and swatched out perfectly with my Light Summer fan. Its such a lovely color.
Over all thoughts on STRIPES: the pattern is clear and easy to follow and you get the steps to customize multiple parts so you can end up with exactly the sweater you want. The top down round yoke construction means you can try it on as you go and if you know how your yarn is going to block out you'll have a good idea of the fit of the finished garment. I've gotten to where I don't like to trim my ends until after blocking so you may notice there are still a couple sticking out in the "finished" try on photos. I like to give the new garment a good soak after weaving the ends in and then block it out nicely and let everything settle in to place. Sometimes I will even wear the sweater or other garment around the house for a while to get any stretching, shifting, moving around done and settled, then go back and trim the ends.
Wrapping it all up: I'd like to get back in the habit of coming here to share my thoughts. So let me know if you are out there and how you are doing right now. What are you working on? How has the last year affected your habits and hobbies? Maybe I'll do a video sometime. Maybe I'll get distracted by life again. This blog has been a lot of things in the past. First a way to stay connected to my knitting buddies in Thousand Oaks, California when I moved back to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Then part of my business when I decided to hit the craft fair circuit. After I "retired" from that it became a much more occasional place to drop thoughts and photos. I change, the blog changes. My knitting changes. My desire to share the love of knitting and yarn never changes.
Until next time, much love,
But wait, 4 skeins aren't enough to do a whole sweater! Especially when the majority of them have to be held double. So I started rummaging and throwing every pink and purple skein I had next to them to see what would happen. I finally settled on a color palette that included a beautiful skein from the flowers series by The Violet Valentine called Cosmos (It's the lovely speckled light pink in the sweater) and leftover Party Punch from Southern Skeins, which I had used to make a dress top for my daughter in the fall. I still feared it wasn't quite enough yardage so I also added a beautiful light silvery mohair that leans cool, almost purple and seemed to fit right in. In hindsight I would have held it triple to make the weight closer to the other yarns, but it still works. 
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