FO: Saroyan

Oh, Cashmere!



It's generally just way too precious for me to justify the cost, but it doesn't hurt to try every now and then.

The market is flooded with so much cheap cashmere.  Instead of being an ultra-luxury good, the Chinese figured out how to mass produce it and now you can get a sweater of low-quality, but a label that says 100% cashmere, for less than $50.  Ten or so years ago, you would be paying many hundreds of dollars.  It's astounding.  Still, when you come across the real, high-quality stuff, it's worlds different.  It feels like heaven.

So, back when I lived in New York, at one point I inadvertently signed up for Groupon.  Ugh, Groupon.  Your idealist sales pitches make me feel inadequate for not getting my hair straightened and my face microdemabraided and my cellulite lasered daily.  I would pop one into my shopping cart every now and then when it was something I would actually use: usually restaurants I was already known to frequent, or a good deal on a yoga studio package that was somewhere between work and home.  Occasionally, a fancy yarn store would offer up one, and being no fool, I would grab it.

So I had a Groupon for Knitty City- a place on the Upper West Side that was just a little too far out of my daily grind to be of any real use to me.  I think you pay $25 and got $50 worth of product, or something like that.  It's a nice way to try new yarns anyway.  I showed up, looked around, and instantly noticed that they had Jade Sapphire 6-ply cashmere bundled up as a scarf kit- 4 skeins for $100, when the yarn is normally about $50 a skein.  So, for $75 total, I ended up buying $200 worth of the nicest cashmere yarn money could possibly buy.  It was still ridiculously expensive, the color selection made me a little depressed, but it came home with me and sat in my stash, occasionally being gently petted and dreamed of the day when I might actually have the balls to make something with this wonder of the textile world.

Finally, right before I moved from France: much travel time, the need to use bamboo needles on the plane, and the need for a fairly mindless pattern resulted in this:



A lovely, wearable Saroyan scarf.  It worked out perfectly- the yarn is so soft and drapey and cushy, a simple pattern was best; something unfussy.  I still am a bit ashamed of the ungodly amount of money it cost me for the yarn, but it's so snuggly and amazing and warm, $75 seems totally reasonable now.



The lace-leaf edging gives it a nice touch.  I've worn it pretty much constantly since I finished it and it's my go-to scarf this winter.  As it should be!





Despite the fact that I finished it while in Costa Rica, I managed to weave in the ends with my stubby fingers and trim them off with my pocket knife (gasp!) and started wearing it instantly, regardless of it being quite tropical in climate.



But it's fantastic, and my favorite thing ever (at the moment anyway) and I might even take this time to admit that I have worn this to bed on more than one occasion.  It's that comforting.  When I do reluctantly take it off, it feels like I've sawed off a limb and I totally feel a sense of loss.  The bottom line is:  I refuse to have a bad day when I am wearing this scarf.

Totally worth it.

FO: Pup Tent

Growing up, I had many, many cousins. I lived pretty far from them, so I wasn't really part of the tight-knit core group. When I would visit them, it was fun, if mostly because I got to ride around in the bed of a pickup truck and I was allowed to operate heavy farm machinery at a tender age. Plus, my vocabulary of bad words and insults would grow tenfold anytime I spent more than a few minutes with them. That is if I could stop coughing enough from all the cigarette smoke being inhaled second-handedly.

Anyway.

The name of this hat is Pup Tent. I can not say the words "pup tent" without cracking up a little bit. It's mostly because my disrespectful trash-talking cousin once yelled while observing clothes hanging out on the line, "Aunt Linda, your underwear are so big, I could use them as a pup tent!" and then we all scattered like so may giggling deer to escape the wrath of a chubby, angry aunt. When you are six, it's funny. Or, as we might say, "wicked funny".

The pattern is a freebie. I made it a little larger to use up the yardage and ended up with a nice slouch. I used it to use up the last 150 yards of Canopy Worsted leftover from the Vine Yoke Cardigan. It's simple and it used up what I had left, and it will now make a very nice gift for a winter-climate dweller (although perhaps just not for my Aunt Linda).

FO: Snowtracks Hat

Another gift hat!

By the time La Poste gets around to delivering it, there probably won't be much need for such a warm hat, but eh. There's another winter coming up soon.

This one worked up quick-as-a-bunny with another skein of Cascade 220 Tweed. I'm trying to knit my stash down to scraps, and then make a striped hat out of all the scraps. One can dream, no?

It's simple, it's very warm, and a bit oversized for a friend who has a lot of hair to tuck under.

It's called the Snowtracks hat. That made me think of cocaine, so I made it in an un-pure purple color. I made the ribbing at the bottom extra long so you could fold it over to keep the ears extra warm. I found it very much to be a caricature of a winter-hat shaped hat.

FO: Utopia Hat

A quick, simple gift hat for a friend that's been pestering asking for one for quite some time.

It's the Utopia Cable hat. Quick, simple beanie with nice results. It's a free pattern (and written in the style that fee patterns tend to be) but it's not difficult. It's perfectly unisex to downright manly, depending on your color choice.

I love meandering cables. I used a skein of Cascade 220 tweed in a very dark coffee brown shade. I actually like the tweedy bits in this shade- no more rainbows, just subtle flecks of lighter colors.

Spring has not made itself so known that this won't get worn a couple times before it's put away.

FO: Wisteria Sweater

Oh, hello! I've been on a real sweater kick lately. I think it's a kind of "make hay while the sun shines" sort of philosophy, except it's "Make warm sweaters while you can still bear to wear them".

While we've had a couple odd warm-ish days, and a few sunshiny days (which were bitterly cold) spring is indeed coming. A trip through the countryside north of here revealed a slight tingle of green to the trees, and a couple fields were growing something green but the TGV whips by them at 200 mph, so I couldn't tell you what. I've been having a tendency to travel to fairly arctic climates this past year, so winter sweaters have been a year-round wardrobe staple anyway.

I've been wanting to make the Wisteria Pullover from Twist Collective since it came out in 2008. When I fall for an unusual pattern, I usually wait a little while before casting on because it takes a little time for reality to hit me and for me to realize that whatever garment I choose might have not been the best choice. This is why one of my first sweaters was an enormous, fully cabled monster that flattered no one, but I'm saving it for when I'm in my late 70's and can only hope to get lost in a garment.

I had even bought yarn for this: a gorgeous dark purple Madeline Tosh called Oxblood. I hed even started swatching for this sweater with the Tosh, before my stash and I were so rudely separated by an ocean. The Tosh will have to find a new purpose now, as I had acquired some really gorgeous Mondegreen from the Verdant Gryphon and got to it.

This yarn was amazing. It's an unusual blend of 60% Blue Face Leicester wool, 20% silk, and 10% baby camel. The baby camel causes it to have a slightly fuzzy soft bloom, but the underlying silk gives it a sheen, and it overall creates a dense and beautiful drapey fabric, with really nice stitch definition. Oh, and the color. I'm always a fan of neutrals, but this a beautiful steely gray with purple undertones.

The pattern was well-written. The cabling took a little time, but the rest of the sweater was simple. The only mod I made was I added another 2 sets of waist shaping decreases. I made the 40" size, which is bigger than I normally make but I wanted a slightly roomier sweater, but I didn't want it took look sloppy, hence the extra decreases. The only other thing I would change if I made this again would be some short-rows at the bust. The sweater is the same shape front and back. Because it is roomy, it's not a bad fit, but even the flattest of pancakes would have better results fit-wise if it had some boob shaping.

Oh, my row gauge was off and I realized the sweater was getting to be tunic sized if I didn't cut it off (It's knit from the neck down) so I have 6 rows less cable pattern at the bottom edge. But I love the necklace of twining cables. It really makes the sweater unique.

Despite the fact that I was told "Hey, you'll be ready to go to the Ren Faire in that" while I was knitting it, I find it to be wearable. It's unusual, but in a graceful sort of way. This isn't a light weight sweater at all. It is cozy and warm and snuggly, and it held up so nicely through multiple wears so far.

I love it. New favorite.

FO: Beagle Pullover

I have waxed on previous years about my obsession to knit men's sweaters. I love them so. And you have to love them, as you will be working on them for a really long time.

This one was another design from the Norah Gaughan Men collection. It's the second one I've made from this booklet- the first one being the Devon pullover- and I really love the designs. Rustic, not too fussy, totally wearable.

I knit the sleeves on this first, and then put it down to knit a couple of hats for friends. When I picked it back up to do the body, I was able to finish it in two weeks without bloodying my hands too much. That's a lot of stitches! Give me a deadline, and I will give you a sweater. The only modification I made was that I knit the body in the round and then split at the pits.

The yarn I choose was a discontinued bag of Cascade 220 Tweed in Stone color. It's good workhorse yarn like anything else 220. I was a bit sick of the tweedy bits by the end though. I don't often knit with tweed yarns but I now know that I much prefer a subtle, heathery tweed instead of flecks of ground-up crayola bits in the yarn.

It's warm. It fits. I love the textured stitches. It's pretty much perfect. While drop-sleeves aren't my favorite fit, they are the simplest, especially if you are working around a stitch pattern.

I used 6 skeins of yarn on this- 1320 yards. My trick to getting it done was to try to force myself to get through one skein every two days. A great strategy for getting through the dark days of winter as well. This is the 44" size, which gives the wearer a couple inches of ease without it being too bulky.

My only gripe is that the sleeves are a bit long and the cuffs need to be rolled. I want to fix it, he says he doesn't mind. Still. I might fix it.

The photoshoot was in the town of Amiens in Picardy. I'll have more about our outing there tomorrow, but it is home to the most massive cathedral in all of France, and it's cold and a good place to wear a good wool sweater.