Gender neutral knitting
Don't you love that feeling when you have a few knitting projects that are all 95% done, so when you finish them you suddenly have 4 new items of clothing almost overnight? It's like magic.
I've got a few knitwear projects to share with you but I thought I would spread them over a few newsletters. There's only so much knitting chat you can have in one email and two of them are slightly sad failures so prepare yourselves.
These are probably my most successful recent FOs (finished objects for those not fluent in the nerdy world of knitting acronyms). The sweater has become an instant hit in my wardrobe and has been on firm rotation since I bound off those final stitches.
It's the Jared Flood Fort pattern, which is technically a menswear design. What is gender though really? I made this for Andrew a few years ago and liked it enough that I wore it pretty consistently through last autumn and winter. Eventually he got fed up of my constant borrowing (my argument though: I birthed this sweater so it's mine in perpetuity) so I decided to knit my own.
The blue is a chunky weight New Lanark yarn that I salvaged from a poorly fitting colourwork sweater than never saw the light of day. I bought a couple of balls of cream yarn in the same weight to do the yoke, since I didn't have enough blue to do the entire sweater in that colour. I then had the IMO genius idea to use the single skein of mustard yellow yarn I bought from Hand Spinner Having Fun whilst on holiday in Skye to do the collar and cuffs and I love love love how it looks. I wanted bracelet length sleeves and I think I finished just a smidge too high, meaning these are probably an inch or so too short, but it's fine. I still like the proportions, it just takes a bit of mental getting-used-to, since I'm used to overlong sleeves rather than the other way round. Makes it easier to see my watch though so that's a thing.
The hat and cowl are a free pattern from Purl Soho, the Fisherman's Rib Scarf and Cowl. I had one skein of this aran weight blue flecked yarn in my stash and it was pleasingly enough to make both the hat and cowl with nothing leftover. I love a zero waste project, I never know what to do with the odds and ends of different weights of yarn left after a project. If anyone has any suggestions that aren't 'leave it to languish in your stash for 5yrs and then donate it', I would love to hear.
We recently headed up north to Inverness to see Andrew's brother before he leaves for Canada. We took the dogs for a family walk on the beach and for all that it was beautiful and energising, it was also brisk AF and I was very glad for my hat and cowl. Andrew says it makes me look like an extra from a Wes Anderson movie and I am OK with that.
