Saturday, November 27, 2010

Fall berries

This is something that was also a love at first sight. The moment I saw the pattern I knew I wanted to make it, and I knew I wanted to make it from this rusty colored scottish wool.
However, unlike the military jacket, this dream took a long time to become fulfilled. Oh, I did bought the pattern at once and I had the yarn in my stash, I even cast on promptly... But then it started so slow, and then the knitting olimpics came and I decided in the last minute to go for it and cast on for something else.... then the bomb hit and I did not knit at all... for the longest time. It was only a couple of weeks, but it seemed like an ethernity. By the time I started again, it was way into summer, and I knitted lighter, cottony stuff and lace shawls (don't ask me why, lace knitting comes over me at summer time-go figure).
But at finishing the Military jacke I had great momentum, and it was fall again, need for warm sweaters, so I took this out of the basket and finished it in two weeks.

The pattern is Blackberry cabled cardigan, Well worth the money. Great pattern, wery straighforward instructions. The changes I made are not because I thought the original not god enough, but only accomondate my body, and particular likes. They were more decrease and increase for waist-shaping, slightly wider sleeves, and a really wide ribbing at the cuffs.

The yarn once again came from Kingraig's fabric, the scottish wool. And once again I go all gaga and mushy when I try to write about it. i already mentioned how great these sellers are, so I am not going into that. I also talked about their wool/silk tweedy yarn.

This one is lamb'swool aran, and the color... the color. It is so gorgeous, and not only because the rusty orange is so perfectly me, goes well even with my hair. But because it is so gorgeously heathery, and so deep, as there is several shades of orange spun toogether with a tiny bit of ochre and some dark red thrown into it. The different colors can only be seen if one looks at it very closely.

Since this is not the first time I knit with this yarn, I was prepared to see it changed, to "bloom", but the way this did just blew my mind. Let me show what I mean, OK?

As I told you it was gorgeous when I knitted it, and was enchanted with the colors. Look, it looked like this when I finished the sweater.

But then I washed it, and it changed for even better. The fibers that were smoothed down by the spinning process loosened, "fluffed up", and they softened. Even the color has changed, deepened even more. (The photos were taken in different light conditions, but you get the idea).

Take a closer look, before:

And after:

OK, I admit, since I know this quality of the yarn I did put in the washing machine and gave it a few turn in the gentle cycle, to enhance the blooming process even more, but that is something I DO NOT suggest for the faint of heart, especially because this is not superwash. I only dared to do it, because the sweater came out ever so slightly big, and it could only benefit from shrinking, and it was really only a few turns, and I rolled in into several layers of towels before slightly spinning it (I know, this is bordering on blasphemy, but otherwise it would have rot before it dried).
But it would have bloomed if i just give it a bath a few gentle tuck in the bathtub. All in one lovely yarn, which comes in gorgeous colors and at a good price.

And I love the sweater as well.

And so do I love my photographer :-) You know who that was.

4 comments:

knittingozfan said...

gorgeous cardigan with such lovely colours!
I love your knitting - you are so creative ... and so quick!

Brussels Chronicles said...

this is aboslutely beautiful and the colour becomes you very well ! (I love cables !!)

Anonymous said...

It turned out SO pretty - and in the perfect color for you, too! ;)

Anice kötős blogja said...

Thanks for giving a detailed presentation of your lovely cardi. I still feel the texture under my fingertips.