FO: ZWEIG SWEATER

I meant to blog more over the summer but I sort of forgot about it! I have two finished items to share, however. This post will be all about Zweig by Caitlyn Hunter.

Knit in Knitpicks Palette in Ice Lily for the lighter parts and Stellar Heather for the darker rest of it. I really enjoyed working with the Palette and already ordered some for my Birkin sweater which I’ll be starting soon. (I am working on a So Faded sweater that I want to finish first however.) I knit the body to my preferred length, then added about 1.5″ of 2×2 ribbing at the bottom. I had actually knit 1×1 ribbing per the pattern, but hadn’t used a smaller needle so wound up ripping it back and reknitting. I was almost done when I looked at the pattern and realized that it called for 1×1 ribbing. Oh well! I like the look of the 2×2 and I was not going to rip it out again! I don’t think anyone will notice, least of all me, who ripped out one type of ribbing and immediately started reknitting without even noticing. I think it hangs better than 1×1 anyway. I have a flipping up problem on other 1×1 body hems on other sweaters I’ve knit. So, whatever.

Anyway, I first laid eyes on this pattern last fall. The designer came to my attention with the bevy of finished Sunset Highway patterns I saw appear on my Instagram feed due to the Rhinebeck yarn festival in New York. I thought it was an interesting sweater so I started following the designer. It was colorwork using a fingering weight yarn though, and both colorwork and knitting a whole sweater in what is basically sock yarn wasn’t something that really ever interested me – it seemed a lot of work and I’m not a fast sweater knitter. I’ve dabbled in colorwork here and there over the years but it wasn’t something that really caught my attention. That was something other people did. It wasn’t something that I did (could do).

But then Zweig came out and you guys. I wanted that sweater. Most of my sweater knitting has been with regular aran/worsted weight yarn as I am generally a product knitter and want to have the finished item ASAP. I’ve knitted several sweaters and they are all sweaters that I really wanted for whatever reason, whether it was the yarn, or the pattern, or occasionally the construction process.

This sweater, as many sweaters knit in fingering weight yarn are, I am learning, is knit not on tiny needles (e.g. US 1 or US 2 like socks are) but on medium needles! I used US 5 Chiagoo* circular needles for this project and it came together pretty quickly, considering my limited knitting time and project halt right in the middle to start So Faded (haha). I started it at the end of February so it did take several months to complete, but I barely worked on it. Weeks would go by without any progress but when I did work on it, it went very quickly. So I don’t feel like it took much longer than other sweaters I’ve made in the past with aran/worsted weight. I went for years thinking fingering weight sweaters on smaller needles were just like, above my pay grade or whatever. Now I feel like a whole new world of patterns has opened up to me!

I absolutely loved knitting this pattern – I really love the designer’s work and plan on knitting several more of her sweater patterns! They also fit me really well. The other one of Caitlyn Hunter’s I did was Whitehorse. Now that I finished this one I’m probably going to cast on for Birkin, even though I’m still working on So Faded. I like the So Faded sweater because it’s just stockinette so it’s nice and brainless. That one is also going to have 3/4 or bracelet-length sleeves so those won’t be as long either. For Zweig I did want to knit a full length sleeve because I don’t have a ton of those in my handknit arsenal and last winter I kept reaching for my Vaila due to the long sleeves.

Some in-progress shots:

So, I’m still feeling the sweater-knitting vibe, which is very weird for me since previously I’ve had very little interest in that. But the Caitlyn Hunter/Boyland Knitworks patterns really speak to me for some reason so I’m going to go ahead and just keep knitting those! I’ve also become somewhat enamored of the Drea Renee Knits patterns (including So Faded) so I’ve got another one of those on the docket as well.

In fact, here are my immediate plans since I have the yarn for them:

• Finish So Faded
• Birkin by Caitlyn Hunter (Knitpicks Palette) – want to finish this by Thanksgiving. Wish me luck!
• Tecumseh by Caitlyn Hunter (Knitpicks Wool of the Andes Sport)
• Alyeska by Caitlyn Hunter (all stash yarn!) Mine will be shades of green shot with hot pink.
• Wool & Honey by Andrea Mowry (Woolike from Michaels) If this yarn works for this pattern, it will have cost $4.50, since I got it on sale at 50% off! This is an acrylic yarn but it feels amazing! It will be a rusty red color.

I also have yarn to make the following:

• Stag Head Pullover by Norah Gaughan (Lion Brand fisherman wool) – Theoretically I’d like this to be a Christmas sweater. But it’s knit in pieces and I don’t know about that. I’m kind of thinking about either knitting just the front and then the rest on the knitting machine or making an attempt to knit this in one piece from the bottom up with full cables all around. Since I haven’t decided what to do, this project remains in limbo.
• Daelyn by Isabell Kraemer (MadelineTosh I got at Stitches in an obnoxious speckled lime green) – this will be a great basic. But I’m kind of thinking that I want this yarn to be a cardigan with a garter edge so, I dunno yet.
• Forster by Norah Gaughan (Miss Babs Yowza) I knit a swatch for Berroco’s swatch experiment just for fun and they sent me a code to pick a pattern from their website. This was so nice because I wasn’t really expecting anything in return from this (aside from the skein of yarn they sent to make the swatch, which I will make a hat from) and I was able to pick a Norah pattern from one of her booklets that I don’t have.

And then there are the patterns I am interested in and would like to make but don’t have any concrete plans for:

• Dragonflies by Joji Locatelli (I think this will be out of Malabrigo Rios but haven’t decided yet)
• True Friend by Veera Välimäki (I have this pattern but don’t know what to knit it out of)
• Pavement by Veera Välimäki. I don’t have this pattern yet but I think it will make a nice basic. Would probably make it out of a speckled yarn or Malabrigo Sock.

Anyway, I have a lot of things planned. Ravelry has this new feature where you can set deadlines and I like that. I mean… I’ve managed to finish three sweaters this year! And hopefully will do at least two more! I think that’s pretty good.

*I replaced almost all my circular needles with Chiagoo needles this year – I still love my Addis, especially for lace and shawls, but many of my other needles were Susan Bates, and once you’ve knit with higher end needles, it is hard to go back. I do not like wooden needles, the sleeker, metal, pointy-as-hell needles you can find these days are my jam. Addi Lace circulars are a fantastic product, and I recently discovered Chiagoo, which are very similar, with pointy ends but more affordable.