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O'ahu born and Rockville bred, both Maryland and Hawai'i are home. Middle-aged knitter (believe me, my 40 is NOT the new 20) seeking the courage to live consciously, each and every moment. Now if I could just remember where I put my keys...

Friday, October 8, 2010

SOLD: Will Knit for Coffee. Or Money. Or Coffee Money...

So. This is the first sweater I made and sold - to a dear friend who is now starting to knit!

SHAZAM!

(Can I tell you that I am feeling excitement dangerously close to the kind I imagine I would feel if I was in a cult and scored a bonus-points convert - ? The kind of convert with a large trust fund and no heirs.)

Looking back at my notes on this project on Ravelry, it took me slightly less than a month to knit. I'm thinking I was fairly devoted to the project, and wasn't knitting on a lot of other stuff at the time.


Pattern Designer: Colinette - of course!
Pattern Book Title: Nostalgia (Colinette #63)
Pattern Name: Millais
Yarn Brand: Colinette
Yarn Type: Parisienne (in Fire, color #71 ) and Tao (in Windfall, color #149 )

Come to think of it, looking at the dates (March-April), I betcha this was knit with yarn I purchased at Woolwinders in Rockville (no longer carrying Colinette - but who is in DC these days? *sniff*) after getting a sweet little tax refund. It came out a little small for me, but I wore it a few times anyway, and when Leslie saw it her eyes lit up, so when an offer was made, I accepted.

Some notes on knitting this up: Pay attention to the Tao stitches. Also, they are a little tricky - the pattern is written for right-handed yarn throwers (English style) and I am a picker and knit in the Russian Continental style (more about that someday, it is such a pain to figure out stitching, let me tell you, and I am going to at some point get up and going on that; I need to do a page transposing stitches for those of us like me). I've even had English throwers contact me about how to do the stitch. Not that I'm much help.



Also, the way I knit, the pieces have a lot of horizontal give and not a lot of vertical give. So, I would go a tad longer than you think you need, at least on the body, and maybe go a little narrower in the body pieces.

Finishing: this was pretty darn easy to finish. I used the Parisienne to stitch together and because of the nylon or whatever man-made base is in that yarn, it's quite strong and disappears nicely. Just did simple mattress stitching (article with pictures from Knitty.com here), and it worked just fine.

Leslie mentioned this as a beach sweater - something nice for evenings in summer on your vacation when a chill is coming off the water... I have to say that the pattern dresses up and down, makes a great preppy-style shoulder wrap as well as a nice little pullover.

Work. Not at the beach today. Damn. Oh well...


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BTW, poking around online it looks like the pattern and yarns are being kitted and sold as of the date of this posting. If you are thinking about it, it is probably a good way to get a great color combination for this project, especially as not many US shops are currently stocking Colinette yarns. A state of affairs I would like to see changed! You really have to touch and feel and SEE Colinette to get it. Amazing stuff. (I know. Foaming at the mouth is not all that attractive. Sorry.)

2 comments:

  1. This is amazing Jann. I don't know a THING about knitting but I know complexity when I see it. You just sold a piece of your art and that has got to feel really good. Congrats!

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  2. Thanks, DI! I want to make something for you - what are your fav colors?

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