Yes, indeed. Having discovered the speedy winning formula of short sleeves, a little cropped but with plenty of ease in the body, in my first sweater of the year, I went there again with the second. What’s more I added some motivating stripes into the mix.
While it’s tempting to bask in the glory of the sweater that was knit in a week, this would never have happened if I hadn’t succumbed to covid. Within 4 days of having returned from the UK to Italy with a negative PCR test under my belt and having mixed with only 4 people because I didn’t want to risk anything because I had my booster booked, and just hours after having that booster, I developed symptoms. At first I thought it was side effects from the booster, and a negative lateral flow seemed to agree. When these ‘effects’ shifted from a feeling that something was crushing my skull, to the classic persistent cough and lingering fatigue, the doctor prescribed a PCR that proved positive. So what else to do during a 7 day isolation period? The worst of my symptoms had passed by the time I had the positive test and during that time prior I’d not picked up my needles once. So pent up knitting mojo and fading symptoms proved the perfect combination for a quick knit.
I think that it helped that I kept it simple with a return to my favourite everyday sweater recipe. I’ll come back and share my everyday cardigans and everyday sweaters another day but today, suffice it to say these are patterns for garments wear all the time and are really simple knits. They’re both top down circular yoke patterns and I have a drawing with my preferred measurements, my own personal schematic that acts as my guide. I can judge from experience what needles generally work with a yarn to give me the fabric I like and have notes from previous projects with details including cast on numbers and gauge to help me get started. With a top down pattern adjustments can be made pretty quickly as you go. Here are few previous sweater made using this approach, (minus an as yet unblocked cotton 4 ply version completed just as it turned cold at the end of last summer and which has been in the laundry basket ever since waiting for the weather to improve…) :
I find this style of top so wearable, and as you can see they’ve all been knit with a combination of yarns and my covid sweater was no exception. While my previous sweater were made from deep stash yarns, this one was made with reclaimed yarns from projects in the ‘to frog’ pile. Anyone would think I wanted and absolutely no risk, no jeopardy project on the needles!
The background yarn is a brown 100% vintage wool that originally came in 25g/ 1 ounce balls and had been knit up following a vintage bed jacket pattern, but never worn because it was too small. The stripes in the yoke are Noro leftovers that had I got from a Ravelry swap group probably 10 years ago, which been knit into not very practical lacy hats. So, I used my time on the couch to frog the bed jacket and 2 hats and then reknit the yarn spaghetti into this sweater.
I love how it turned out. I love the colours in the Noro yarns. The brown is not only the perfect canvas for them, but is also nice and warm. I had just enough of the brown to complete the body to the length I wanted and to finish off the sleeves. On completion I had 5g of brown yarn to spare.
As you can see from the picture, the weather here is cold and dank so sweaters are just the thing and there’s nothing like a colourful yoke to give you a lift on dark dreary days.
Do you have any projects, new or old favourites, that give you a lift on cold, dark, damp days? If so I’d love to hear about them.
Until next time, which probably won’t include an completed sweater…
Take care,
Tess xxx
Stashless 2022 totals:
Noro & wool DK circular yoke sweater: 740m
Stashless total: 1,457m