Green Mohair Adventure

Finally, after an eon of two and a half months, knitting a round or two here and there, I finished my mohair sweater. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, though I still haven't worn it to test it, as the weather is currently quite hot. But I'm sure I don't want to repeat the experience of knitting it - mohair is definitely not my yarn!

The pattern is my own design, top down, circular yoke with 16 sections for increases every 4, then 6, then 8 rounds, until the yoke was big enough to reach the underarms. After the division, the body was knitted in the round evenly to the hem and the hem is a short split rib.

The sleeves are also knitted in the round, with  increases initially every 10th round and then gradually accelerating the frequency of the increases to every 8th and then every 6th round, for a slight bishop style sleeve.

Pattern: Green Mohair Adventure (personal pattern)
Yarn: Ilaria Aurora (67% goat mohair, 3% wool, 30% polyamide), 1000 m / 100 g,
130 g, in two threads
Needle: 3.75 mm
Time to knit: 70 days

I'm glad my mohair adventure is over, now on to lighter and more summery knits :)

Wisteria Sweater II

So, after finishing my angora FIFA sweater, which I enjoyed so much, and with still half the World Cup tournament ahead, I felt like prolonging the experience of knitting a stockinette sweater in the round. I spent most of my knitting time in April on a mohair sweater with hand-dyed yarn, which I ended ripping off. But I loved the yarn so much that I decided to give it another go. This time I'm designing it boxy and short (still debating the length), in reverse stockinette, bottom up. I plan compound raglan with shoulder patches, continuing from the sleeves and round neckline.

To spice up the simple texture I added an interesting cable to the sleeves, which I plan to continue on the shoulder patches. The yarn is very thin - 750 m / 100 g, difficult to knit and I wouldn't call this process very enjoyable. So I'm determined - regardless whether I like the final result, that's it, I'm not reknitting this yarn for the third time.

The tournament finished last night and I'm only halfway through the new sweater, but I hope I'll be able to finish it before the colder days and evenings are back. It'll be a perfect early autumn sweater.

WIP: Wisteria Sweater

I've started a new sweater with hand dyed yarn. During the years I've significantly improved my abilities in designing my own sweaters and now I'm pretty comfortable when I plan a sweater or a cardigan bottom-up. But I've shied away from top-down designs and know little about these constrictions, and more specifically how to make the front lower than the back. But it was high time to dip my toes into these design challenges too, so here is my first self-designed top-down raglan with a round neckline.

I started the sweater imitating Boknits' version of Water's edge cardigan. I had made some calculations for the neckline, based on my experience with designing it bottom-up. But due to my inexperience I felt unsure in the result and hurried the increases, so the neckline is not as low and smooth as it might have been if I had followed my initial notes. I'll know better next time.

When I reached the waist I decided that I'd prefer a lower gathered panel, like in Kim Hargreaves' Swallow, so I continued knitting and gradually increasing at the sides until I reached the beginning of the hips. Now I'm at the peplum part and so far I'm loving it.

The yarn is a mix of two different Zegna Baruffa bobbin yarns - Merino extrafine 1500 m / 100 g, which dyed perfectly and Mousse 1400 m / 100 g, which is sort of mohair and almost didn't absorb the dye. For the dye bath I used the plum dye from my previous dye job and some light red. Because I first skeined the two yarns together and then dyed the skein I suspect the merino absorbed the dye and left little for the mohair. The latter remained like a light lilac cloud over the deeper coloured merino. Frankly, I was initially very disappointed, looking at the skein, but as I began to knit it I grew to like it.

The sweater is very light - I've almost finished the body and so far I've knit about 80 g of the yarn! However I noticed that with the change of the number of stitches around the body I got some pooling of colors around the waist. It's not that noticeable but next time I should better follow the advice indi dyers often give - alternate skeins.

And to improve my dyeing knowledge and experience I recently bought this excellent book by Felicia Lo. My next dye job will probably be an attempt to replicate the yarn on the cover.