Flicky Farrah Fawcett Hair, and a New Sweater

It seems like a very, very long time since I have finished a knitted garment larger than... well, one stitch. My knitting momentum swings back and forth depending on the week and how busy life gets. Since the weather turned cooler, my stitch inspiration seems to be back. I'm glad to show you my newest finished object that I call Sweater Girl, based on a pattern from knitty.com called Margot, by Linden Down. It is knit with a discontinued yarn from Elsbeth Lavold called AL, a merino/alpaca blend. I dreamed this sweater up as soon as I saw the yarn in the bargain basket at Knit and Caboodle during my last trip to Canmore. It feels good to finally see it in real life:

I mostly knit it from the instructions, except I did one more decrease for the waist (and subsequently, one more increase for the hips), and I think I added more length to the torso, but it took me so long to knit this that I can't really remember now. My intention was to make it with long sleeves, but I realized about halfway through that I didn't have enough of the camel-coloured yarn to continue the stripe pattern for them. And well, that's the problem with knitting with discontinued yarns: it's WAY more of a headache to try and get more. That's when I made the decision to go on a button hunt to make the short-sleeve version a touch more interesting. I'm quite happy with the result, especially when I discovered how warm this sweater was while walking up the hill to the gym this morning. Those sheep and alpacas really warm up when you put them together...

With leggings and tall boots in style right now, as soon as I put this outfit on, I felt a little... I dunno, retro? The flicky Farrah Fawcett-thing my hair is doing at the moment isn't helping. Still, it's a flattering silhouette, perfect for one of Charlie's Angels to fight crime in, and therefore good enough for me. I'm happy to know the sweater fits. I was a little worried that, with such a long hiatus from knitting garments, my obsession with knack for a good fit had left me, but it seems that it hasn't, at least not for this project.

I tried to strategically place the stripes so that the smaller parts of my otherwise straight figure could look smaller, and so that I could highlight the bust and hip region to give the illusion of more of an hourglass look. Nothing will replace the lack of hips, but carefully placed stripes help.

I'm thinking that this sweater is going to get a lot of good wear this winter. This pattern also might have the very rare distinction of being knit again someday in the future. Stockinette stitch, knit from the top down with garter stitch accents... the sweater practically fell from the needles, it was so easy.

Well, sorta. It fell in a slow-motion, take-way-longer-than-normal kind of way.

I'm off to join the other angels for a meeting with Charlie now. Later, y'all.