Join Mary on her adventures in playing with string.
Handpainted Vest
I've loved you so
And look how you repay me
Ripped back from shoulders
Down to waist
The frustration will slay me!
I'm meant to wear you
5 days hence
But not the way it's going
The plan that seemed
So Cunning
Now is well and truly
Blowing.
I know what you're thinking: Isn't that the same sweater vest she posted day before yesterday, but WAY BIGGER NOW? Yeah. I've been on a bit of a knitting jag. I surprised even myself with how fast this is going. I put 7 inches on it in two days. When the first 3.5 inches (hem facing no longer visible) took me three days. Both areas contain 320 stitches in a row. Both areas are in stockinette. The only difference is that the first three days were worked flat, and the second two days, which included all the colorwork, were in the round. Now let anybody try to tell you that circular knitting isn't that much faster!
So: How much am I in love with these colors? That would be Madeline Tosh Grasshopper in the border background, and all the rest are Prism, notably Alpine for the main body. While I am starry-eyed over the Tosh color, it's the Prism yarn that is knocking my (handknit) socks off here - it is some seriously squooshy, sproingy, killer yarn. It's superwash, which causes it to be way slippery as wool goes, but also gives it a gorgeous, pearly sheen. So. Dang. Pretty. Here's a money shot (yarn porn, baby...oooh yeah...):
And it's not even blocked yet. Wait till you see the buttons!
This project is the perfect diversion at the perfect time - think of all the housework I'm avoiding! The laundry pile groans (can't even close the laundry room door to avoid it anymore). The kitchen floor has actual topsoil (Spring is coming: Ask me how I know). No one has bought dog food in a while and she's beginning to eyeball the children (actually a potential win/win, if you think about it). Don't care at all. Nobody bug me. I'm knitting.
I arranged the TV show sweater-vest work in progress near the window for a photo. Clementine, my devoted desktop associate and sometime critic has come in for a closer look. She expressed her approval by blowing bubbles.
What you can't tell from this picture is that this has been the Gnarliest hem facing of my entire knitting career. Why Gnarly? Because I decided that I wanted a wrap sweater without pausing to weigh the ramifications; namely that a sweater which wraps must overlap itself by about a third. More sweater width = more stitches. No big deal that, unless you are a dumbass who wants to make a sweater out of sock yarn. You guessed it: 320 stitches in a row on US size 2 needles. And if that weren't bad enough, the depth of the hem to be faced meant that I shouldn't join the round until after the facing was done, amounting to 38 rows of FLAT stockinette. Flat stockinette, in my opinion, is the knitting equivalent of sitting through a lecture on Dung Beetle Husbandry. With a hangover. Flat stockinette in sock yarn on size 2's with 320 stitches in a row is the knitting equivalent of being number 427 in line at the DMV. On Christmas Eve. When the "now serving" sign says "8". And having to pee.
So when I tell you that it took me three days to push through the wall on the @$%*! hem facing, I hope you will appreciate the relief and triumph with which I began the sweater part of the sweater. And you will also understand how it is that I know Clementine approves. She wouldn't dare not.
Here's a better view of the interesting part, now happily joined in a round and well underway:
I am beginning to think that hand painted yarn is the only way I want to live. The colors are so much more complicated. So deeply nuanced, and full of surprises! It's the difference between poster paint and watercolors. Clementine approves, and so do I - fish are seldom wrong about knitting.