Gallery Sweater
Happy Wednesday!
First of all I would love to thank you for your comments on the last post, I LOVED our discussion! Let's do it more often :)I love to be organized, not that I am good at it, but I feel like it's easier for me to keep going when things are more or less structured in my head. I plan my work, I plan my blog posts, I plan my craft projects. But sometimes life gets involved in the most unexpected ways. This weekend I got an email that made me put aside all my current craft projects and get to my stash. My good friend invited me to her gallery next week. She is going to host a small party for "women in art". I was excited to be invited as M. has such a great taste and her and her husband's gallery really stands out. But it didn't end here. She asked me to make something for the open day. Something knitted, 2-3 things so she can show it in her gallery. What?!! Now I got scared :) I love my knitting, but I never thought it's worth showing in the art gallery... But, any crafty challenge is exciting for me. The party is next week and I don't have too much time. I decided to bring my Wildflower crochet dress and Soho dress and also make something new. Something that would look casual, but with the "art" touch.In these kind of moments I am so happy I have a huge stash. I got every single skein out on the bed. It was scary. it was a mess. Two skeins that were gifted to me almost one year ago caught my attention.Shadow by Knit Picks, lace wight 100% merino wool yarn. What I loved about it is the speckles of different colors.
And Shimmer by Knit Picks, lace wight baby alpaca/silk blend yarn. Oh my, what a color it is! The softness of this beauty is indescribable!
I got to my knitting machine and started the swatch process. I usually need a lot of time planning and thinking through my projects, especially when there is color involved. But as I have less than one week to finish it, I had to be fast. The first idea was to make a light weight sweater from the first yarn and add some stripes with the second color to it.
The fabric turned out beautiful, but there are two practical problems that I cannot overlook - the yardage of the first yarn is not enough for the whole sweater, so I would have to add a lot of stripes in the contrasting color. But I just don't see it too "stripey". The second problem is that it would take me forever to seam the lace weight sweater be hand, I just don't have enough time.
After looking and looking at both skeins I had an idea of mixing them up and create variegated yarn.
The idea is to create a plain classic sweater, which appears to be splashed with subtle colors, it's for the art gallery after all! For some reason I always prefer reverse stockinette when the mix of colors involved.
I still can't say if I am going to stick with it or change my opinion a dozen of times again! But so far I am happy with the result. The colors are mixing up in a natural way and the combination of merino/baby alpaca/silk is a dream to the touch! My Gallery Sweater swatch is drying up ready for numbers!
Also this project will become the first one for Andi's new KAL/CAL - Gift KAL/CAL, where you can share the projects made from materials/books that were gifted to you. Always fun and pleasure to be a part of this group, so join the fun!Being realistic about my time, I understand that I won't be able to blog this week, but I'll try to post some progress pics on my Instagram account!I am joining Yarn Along to see other crafters' work. My reading is pretty slow right now, I am on my third Stephen Hawking's book and I love it!
What's on you needles/hooks?
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