Something new

After frogging my last sweater, I decided to let the blue yarn marinate for a bit while I tried out something new. My latest venture is Clemence from Louisa Harding's book Nouveau. There are some differences. Hers is knit with Merletto, a shimmery linen/viscose blend, and mine is knit with Blue Sky Alpacas sport weight, a 100% fuzzy alpaca blend. Hers has an intarsia panel and contrast color at the hems, while mine will be an unadorned version. The alpaca in my stash was roughly the same gauge, and while the yarn itself is not lumpy and bumpy, it knits up irregularly--a rustic feel I thought might work in this case.


This project started out being something else, a pullover from another of Louisa Harding's books. I was quite happy with my tubular cast on and was deep into the ribbing when it occurred to me to read some reviews of this yarn. To my dismay, most of the comments said that it itched, and I had to agree when I held it up to my neck--not at all good for a pullover! So rather than frog what I had done (there's been too much frogging lately), I fudged the stitch count and picked out this cardigan pattern to go forward with. Since intarsia hearts and flowers were not my thing, I eliminated them and started on the eyelet portion.


I have no idea if this will have a happy or heinous outcome. But I do like the idea of adding a few plain neutrals to my closet.

I would say about half of my knitting projects are garments of folly, patterns I love but which do not function as the workhorses of my wardrobe. Such as my colorful Robin sweater:


While I like making wonderful things out of cool yarn, it would also be nice to have more of those useful, if plain, things as well.