New knits: Sunday Sweater and Veela Beanie
At the risk of losing my official status as a sewing blog, here I go again with yet another knitting post. CAN’T STOP!!!
I’m getting pretty fast at this knitting thing. I made the sweater in almost exactly a month, and the beanie took me less than 24 hours. For the past few years I’ve knitted mainly socks and sweaters and shawls, so it was completely shocking to me how fast the Veela beanie materialized in my hands. I guess it’s just been so long since I made a hat that the last time I did it, I was (re)learning how to knit and it just took me longer.
First up for details, the sweater!
Pattern: Sunday Sweater Mohair Edition by Petit Knits
Yarn: Farmer’s Daughter Juicy DK
Notes: I adapted the pattern by using DK yarn rather than two strands of mohair and fingering, and modified the length by cropping it at the high waist, which would have been necessary even if I didn’t want it cropped because I would have run out of yarn.
A new skill I learned with this sweater was how to create the double-folded neckband, which is cool. It was also waaay too tight the first, time, so I went up a size in the sweater just to avoid suffocation. Everything else in this sweater is super easy: knit, purl, increase, decrease, etc.
The yarn was made as a limited edition for Fancy Tiger’s anniversary last summer, so the colorway doesn’t have a name, but the base is Juicy DK and the base color is closest to Juniper? The color flecks are turquoise, bronze, and black/grey. I was hoping the yellow flecks would stand out more, but they don’t, so it’s more of an overall mint-chocolate-chip appearance.
OK, the hat!
Pattern: Veela Beanie by Jenny Noto
Yarn: Purl Soho Plenty in reed grey
Notes: Veela is a great pattern - it includes four different yarn weights, so you really can’t go wrong, and learning that little flower stitch was super fun. The twisted stitch that creates the curved lines that spiral up the hat were also new to me.
The yarn was part of the swag bags at Squam this fall, so I got it for free. It’s called worsted weight, which may be true in strict terms of the ratio of weight to length, but I see no way to knit this yarn into a gauge that would work with any worsted pattern. However, it’s perfect for a pattern that calls for Aran weight, IMHO, and for this pattern I used the chunky weight instructions. Not even sure how that works, to be honest, maybe someone with more knitting experience can explain it to me.
The hat itself is fantastic - I wear it literally every day, inside and out. Clementine loves it so I picked up a skein of yarn and a pom pom to make her one, too.
Here’s a pic that shows both of these makes in action, plus my Imposter Shawl and a Luna Crossbody bag that I sewed this fall (neither blogged, but if you’re interested, the patterns are from Fancy Tiger via Creativebug (the shawl) and Pattern Scout (the bag).