The Crafty Side of Life: Lorien

Do you know the feeling, when totally unrelated things come together, and the result is something absolutely awesome? Such a thing is the way I met Norbert, but that is another story.

This sweater is another. It has so many meanings and layers, a piece of clothing should not have.

If you are only here for the pictures, just get scrolling. If you are interested in the story too, get a cup of tea, this is going to be long. Don't say, I didn't warn you.

Like do you have seasonal colors? Like colors you are more likely to reach for at certain times of the year? Because I do. I might write a whole different post about it, because this might be getting VERY long, but let's just say that in the early months of each year, even though green is NOT my favorite color, I do wear it, but not that much, there comes a moment, when I have a desparate hankering after green stuff. You can see it in my knitting, even as far as back in 2010, when I knitted my green friday sweater in January, or in 2017 when I knitted a DROPS pattern in green, and there were others as well, but I am too lazy to look them up (or maybe there isn't even a blogpost about them).

So there was this hankering after some green knitting, and I did had the yarn...

Back, when there were more second hand shops selling yarns, and one of them even had a webshop, I regularly raided their sock-yarn stock, especially looking for amounts that were above 300 gramms. when the packages came, I often did not put them away, but waited for more to take down the boxes. That is how the green GGH 6 ply and the Lana Grossa dark blue tweed sockyarn happened right next to each other on the table, and when I looked them, I knew I want to use them together, though I had no idea with what pattern... I've put them away in a box, and anytime, I needed something from there, I was caressing them, wondering just what would be the right pattern.

Until about a year and half ago, when some of Elenor Mortensen's pattern drew my attention. The Love-in-a-Mist sweater was a love at first sight, so I knitted it right away, then, and when browsing Ravelry, I came across with the Lorien, once again, I knew that this is what I need to knit from *that* green and *that* blue yarn.

The pattern's name "Lorien" also struck a string in my heart, as not only do I love LOTR, the part set in Lorien is one of my favorites, also Lorien and the leaf-motive was on my mind forever, as I always wanted to do a cape-ish sweater with leafy lace pattern, I even spun up a bunch of gotland wool fiber, because I've read somewhere that the movie's costume department used fabric woven from yarn spun from gotland wool for the elven capes... Though I have not given it up totally, I would need to get another batch of the fiber, as someone really wanted a hank of handspun wool, from a type that existed in a certain historical period, so I kind of sold it (actually exchanged the yarn for a handmade leather pouch, but that is yet another story).

Anyhow, I had the yarn and I had the pattern, and I have started knitting it late last year, only to find out that though the fiber content is similar to the average sockyarn, the thickness of the 6 ply green and the 4 ply blue differs just enough to be... not good knitted together. So I put it away again, thinking what would be a good solution. I did not have enough of the blue to double it, and I did not want to add mohair or something fluffy to it. I looked through my lace-yarn stash, but the blue I have was a totally different shade).

However, I did remember, that, one of the yarnstores (1001 fonal) does carry Lana Grossa, so I walked over one day and found one that was exactly the blue of the tweed, without the colorful bits. Holding it together with the 4 ply sockyarn gave me close enough thickness.

I started knitting the sweater right after I finished my New Year's sweater, and the pattern enchanted me so much, I had a hard time putting it down. Even the non-patterned, stockinett parts went on faster, because of the ticker yarns.

I already said that I prefer thighter, denser knitted fabrics, if possible, so I only went up 0,25 mm with my needles (compared the ones I use for "regular" sock-yarn-sweaters), and have not recalculated the stitch/row numbers of the sweater, I only went for a size smaller than I would have knitted, if I'd have the fingering/sport-weight yarn.

The little colorful spots of the tweed yarn eachanted me, just as much as the slightly brushed effect of the green one.

There was only small problem, because of the two strands of the blue, I kept pushing my needle between the strands, and only picking up the thicker strands, and often needed to go back and fix stitches, especially on parts I only knitted with one color.

Because the pattern had long floats on the back, I often had to "catch " those floats, but catching them also helped with keeping the tension.

Since I have not recalculated the pattern, this is somewhat more generous in sizing than I usually knit, which also meant, I did not have to block it really hard. In fact, hardly needed to. I did, because, as I said, blocking evens out stitches, but I have not pulled and pinned agressively, this time.

(And now, you can see, why I wanted that dark blue bubble pants too :-) I kind of mind that -at the moment- I don't have green shoes to finish off the outfit, but, who knows what happens.)

Please excuse my uncombed hair, I have put it up in the morning, and then we were driving, and wanted to do the photoes before the sun went down...

As for the pattern, I adore Elenor Mortensen's patterns, there are still a couple of them on my list to knit.

Just as the other two I've knitted this one is also well written, and I only changed the... You guessed, waist shaping and the cuffs' and the hem's width. (Once again, that is only my personal preference, nothing to do with how good the original design, because it is just that. GOOD. Great. Gorgeous.)