Finally, I Take on A New Sweater Project

It's been a long, long time since I talked about working on a sweater. Kind of sad, actually, because I my favorite projects really are sweater projects. I love to wear my sweaters. And my house is pretty cold most of the time. So sweaters are a good thing. But to knit a sweater, I need to feel inspired. Either by a yarn in my stash that I just love and want to do something with, and thus I try my hand at doing some of my own design. Or by a design that I think would really work well in my wardrobe. And for a while, nothing really grabbed me at all.

Enter the Winter 2005 Interweave Kints and Kate Gilbert's Pearl Buck Swing Jacket (you have to scroll about midway down to see this project). I fell in love with this project the moment I saw it. It's so very much the kind of sweater that I love to knit and wear: there's some detail, but it's not too busy. There's some intresting things to knit, but it's not going to require my complete concentration to knit. And it's got an interesting shape and construction that I haven't tried before. And it's knit from DK weight yarn, which, in my opinion, is just about the perfect weight yarn. You still get a warm and wonderful fabric, but you don't end up looking like you gained 15 pounds when you put on the sweater.

I didn't get it started right away, in large part because I thought I was going to need to order the Jaeger Matchmaker DK for the project. But I didn't really want to add more yarn to the stash. Unfortunately, the stash doesn't contain any DK weight yarn...oh, wait, maybe it does. Yesterday I realized that I had some Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in the stash that I had picked up when Threadbear was closing it out and put it on discount. I'd been planning on making something from one of her books, but, since this yarn is not discontinued, and sheep and silk worms are clearly not going extinct, and I had sufficient yarn in the stash to create the sweater I am currently interested in, and it's in the right gauge range, I decided to swatch.

And this sweater is just the perfect sweater for those of you who hate to swatch. The back of the sweater has a yoke. And that yoke is really about the perfect piece to knit for gauge. Easy to complete in an evening of knitting, wide enough and lon enough so that you can definitely get a good stitch and row count. And there's nothing like completing a piece of a sweater to give a girl the satisfaction of feeling like she's accomplished something.

A Finished Sweater Yoke

Even if it isn't much to look at.

While this yarn knits up almost perfectly from a gauge perspective, it has a very different quality from the all-merino and very springy Matchmaker. The Silky Wool is going to have a lot more drape. It's also going to give me a lighter sweater. I'm hoping that the lighter weight quality will give it a little more wearability -- i.e. it will do spring and fall well and still be a nice extra layer in winter as well. That's what I love about silk -- it's a light weight fiber but it has fabulous insulating properties.

The color of this yarn is somewhat camera-defiant. It's a very deep, sophisticated purple with some red undertones. I love the heathery effect it creates when knitted up. So much so that I had to put a close up picture here to share.

Silky Wool Texture in Simple Stockinette

In reality, the color is somewhere between the two pictures. This yarn also has fairly nice stitch definitition. I'm hoping the somewhat reflective quality of the heathery bits will help make the details on the sweater pop out.

I've decided to be completely unconventional and to knit a sleeve next. Perhaps by getting at least one out of the way now, the second one won't seem like such an imposition.

To anyone who is going to knit my little sock challenge along with me, I'll be creating a little section in my side bar with your names. Whenever I post about my socks, feel free to update me on yours. I'll try to keep track of your progress a bit, too. I'm looking forward to having a little company in my quest to cover friendly feet in handknit socks!