FO: Wisteria Sweater

A photo presentation of my latest most favourite sweater - Wisteria. It is my own design and I am truly proud with it. The sweater is boxy - a form I wouldn't have thought I would like on myself, as I definitely prefer tailored clothes, but this one I love, go figure. My initial attempt at knitting the yarn was in fact a fitting raglan sweater, which I had almost finished, when I abandoned the idea and frogged it. And I am so, so glad I did - now I have a sweater I love and I am actually going to wear, a lot.
It is knit bottom up to the armholes in reverse stockinette, then I knit the sleeves to the armholes, adding a juicy fat cable for interest and from the armholes up I knitted all the parts together in a composite raglan, preserving the cable up to the neckpiece. When I reached the neckline, I cast off the central stitches on the front and started decreasing to round the neckline, converting from knitting in the round to knitting back and forth.

The whole weight of the sweater is only 140 g - it's like a light super soft cloud around the body and it is surprisingly warm. It was 5C (41F) when we took these pictures today and husband was wearing a wool hat, winter jacket and his hood on and I was posing just in my light sweater and I swear I was not cold (too much :) ).

The yarn is my own composition out of two very thin Italian bobbin yarns -

• Zegna Baruffa Cashwool 100% merino 1500 m / 100 g and 
• Zegna Baruffa Mousse 70% merino 30% polyamide 1400 m / 100 g 

so the average thickness of my resulting yarn was 750 m / 100g, probably the thinnest yarn I've handknit so far. The color of the yarn is also my own handdyeing, using a concoction of red, blue and black to produce plum and some diluted red to add a bit of pink.

Pattern: Wisteria Sweater (personal pattern)
Yarn: Zegna Baruffa Cashwool and Mousse, held together, 140 g
Needle: 3 mm rib, 3.25 mm body
Time to knit: from April to November

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.

My Works In Progress Mid 2018

My current works in progress.

First - the Wisteria Sweater, which I have decided to frog and start anew a bit differently. The problem is that the yarn is very very light and I don't like the fit. There is no flow and drape, the sweater just stays like a puffy cloud around my body, and as I did not make it with negative ease, it actually looks unflattering and the end curls up, despite the garter stitch edge. As I'm totally in love with the yarn and the color, I don't want to waste it on a piece I'm not going to love. So far I'm considering two possibilities - a loose cardigan to put on a colder summer night or a very fitting sweater, like Kim Hargreaves' Temperate. But that will wait, so far I'm just freezing it.

The thing I'm working on actively this week is my mitered square blanket. It is progressing nicely, I've dyed the yarn for the next row of squares. I plan to make it as wide as it is now - 13 squares and to grow it in length until I get tired of it. I'm still not sure what I want it for - a lap blanket - then a row or two more would be sufficient, a cover for the balcony sofa - I'll need about 4 more rows for that, or an actual full size blanket - I'll need at least to triple its length for this purpose.

My third knit is a cowl I started back in the winter, using my Biker Chick imitation yarn. I had finished the cowl and actually worn it once, only to find that the yarn was too scratchy to be worn around the neck. In January I had about 80 g left from the super soft black merino from the Bonus sweater, so I started adding a second layer to the cowl. I'm not hurrying it, as winter is NOT coming any time soon :)

Me wearing the one-layer cowl on peak Tumba in December:

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.