unintentional keyhole neck

unintentional keyhole neck
Originally uploaded by safety dance.

I don't think I've blogged about this project at all, although I did work on it my last night at ABQ SNB (sob). I saw that Andean Silk Twist was on sale (apparently because it's being discontinued) a few months ago, 1 ball for $1.99, so I ordered some. I wasn't sure I liked when I got it, but I dove in and started knitting. Well, I'm still not sure I like it, but here it is. Self-designed almost-an-FO, colorway sunset, which looks gorgeous close-up, but which from far away is just a muddle. (This is probably why Andean Silk Twist is being discontinued--the colorways were, um, not great. Good idea in theory, though. Maybe they'll come up with some new Twists!)

I've blocked the crap outta this mofo and still, when I pin it to mimic how I want the buttons to go, it's all gappy! So I'm going to leave it like this, find a really cool button or pin to put right at the top and a dark blue cami to wear underneath, and call it a keyhole neck. Totally on-purpose design element! Totally!

CPHoenix: ashes reconstructed

The Central Park Hoodie is dead. Long live the Phoenix!

When I finished this sweater in February and tried it on, I was crushed to find that through some mysterious quirk of gauge it was both too short and too tight. One or the other might be bearable, or both if it were 100% natural fiber. But I used Woolease, so obviously blocking it larger wasn't a solution. Fortunately for me, rather than rip this yarn from its second sweaterly incarnation, I have a shorter, slimmer sister to whom I owe a sweater (see Skully, Christmas '05).

It's somewhat self-designed, as in, I took someone else's shaping and sizing and modified it heavily. This is based on my old friend, the Hourglass Sweater from LMKG, with embossed twining leaf leace from Vogue Knitting on the sleeves. I added ribbing with baby cables to the hem and just plain ribbing (because baby cables are too fussy to keep making) to the neckline, which if I'm totally honest I think is too big, but I actually really like with a t-shirt, tank, or button-down underneath.

I used the embossed twining vine leaf lace pattern from Vogue Knitting. I also originally wanted to make the raglan lines stand out, but couldn't figure out how to do it; I wanted the appearance of a seam, to make the stockinette body and reverse-stockinette sleeves look like they'd been sewn together from other sweaters. But I like the little purl channel I made instead. Instead of decreasing ssk, k1, k2tg, I did ssk, p1, k2tog. I'll definitely be using that again.

Now to go outside and enjoy the last sunshine before this 20-year storm they're predicting...