I have a dark confession: I was suckered by advertising to knit this pattern.
Over the summer I was clicking through Ravelry, as one does, and a picture of this pattern kept popping up on the side. I kept looking at it and was slowly coming around to liking it a lot. I can’t recall this happening with a Ravelry ad before, but let’s just roll with it.
After perusing some of the completed projects on Ravelry and seeing some of the variegated versions, I knew exactly what yarn I wanted to make. It was an already-wound skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in a long-forgotten colorway. If I recall correctly, this was a special limited edition colorway for The Loopy Ewe.
Since I wound this skein many moons ago (and started a sock, which I just cut off from the rest of the skein, haha) it was already ready to go. The sock that I abandoned was actually in a similar feather and fan pattern so I knew that the variegation in the yarn would work well with this pattern.
Anyway, it basically knit itself and I immediately made plans for another one in a honey-colored skein of my precious Bugga! That one took a little longer to finish due to work getting in the way of my knitting time, but is also completed.
But back to the FO. This pattern knits up very quickly, though definitely needs a full wet block in order to reach its full potential. I have really enjoyed knitting these. The only modifications I made were to give both cowls a picot edge. I feel like it needed a little extra something at the edge to call back to the feather & fan lace.
I also started and finished a Marled Mania Sweater by Westknits since I last updated here, and I just need to get some pictures taken of it – it’s really great!
While in the midst of working on my sweater(s), I really wanted to knit something and BE DONE, so a quick project. Since I’m on a Caitlyn Hunter kick currently and for the foreseeable future, naturally I went with her Kobuk hat pattern.
I knit this out of a skein of Berroco Peruvia that I got at a thrift store (one of our local yarn stores shuttered and their remaining stock went to this thrift store in Walnut Creek – I got a ton of patterns, magazines, and this yarn and only spent $14). This yarn is essentially roving – a single ply wool. I kind of hated working with it! Even on size US 10 needles it wasn’t super easy to work with. But I persevered and knit this guy up in a weekend. The finished product is quite nice and is a fun addition to my slowly growing collection of slouchy hats.
I liked the texture and knitting the bobbles. I think they’re cute. The pom pom is one of the big bag of faux fur pom poms I ordered for like $16 off Amazon around Christmas time. I still have ten left.
Pom pom goodness
Anyway, it was nice to have a finished project and it kickstarted me back into working on Zweig which I finished shortly thereafter. I would definitely make this again, but in a yarn that’s easier to work with.
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!
Slightly blurry but you can see the all-over texture.
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.
A close up at the lace detail on the yoke.
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!
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:
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.
