Yellow FIFA Sweater

It all started with my new noise cancelling wireless headphones. This autumn I've been obsessed with listening to audiobooks during my daily walks, and even on my trips downtown. The weather this autumn was very mild, even warm and if i needed a hat, it was my cap to shade my eyes from the sun. 

And then came late November and it became too cold to walk in the park for an hour, often longer, without a warm hat. The headphones work over a hat, but not as effectively as directly on the ears. So, faced with my tiny problem, and as stupid as it sounds, I googled images of hats and headphones and came upon this picture of Selena Gomez from Only Murders in The Building. I was absolutely fascinated by her look with the yellow hat and the yellow sweater. Probably this is the inspiration I've been waiting for all year long, for I immediately started searching for suitable yellow yarn and planning a similar look.

Just then the sales for Black Friday were happening and I settled upon a sale offer from a Bulgarian yarn company, that I have used before - Performance yarn. The yarn I bought is supposed to be 100% merino of fine quality, 250 m / 100 g - exactly in the range of thickness I was shopping for and in a delightful mustard yellow color. 

Even with the sweet 20% off from the BF sale, the yarn was expensive, within the price range of the Italian bobbin merinos I've been buying these last years. Maybe I've been spoilt, but the quality of the yarn did not meet my expectations, given its price, so I won't be shopping any time soon from this company.

But I cast on my sweater anyway. I wasn't planning it as a FIFA World Cup sweater, I even thought of boycotting the football cup because of Qatar's questionable hosting, but football is football and I simply couldn't miss the emotions I get from following the matches every four years. And thus for two weeks now I've been watching the games and knitting my yellow FIFA sweater.

The inspiration sweater is a machine knitted raglan fisherman rib sweater. I'm knitting mine in half-fisherman rib and so far I've done the front and the back up to the armholes and this evening, while my beloved Spain lost to Morocco :(((, I cast on one of the sleeves. I plan to knit the two sleeves up to the armholes as well and then I'll decide whether to continue the sweater raglan or with separate sleeves.

I'm also playing with the idea of adding small zippers at the hem sides of the sweater, but I'll think about it when I come to that AND if I can find suitable zippers. I hope I'll be able to finish the sweater till the end of the World Cup and if I have enough remaining yarn, I plan to knit the matching hat too.