Silky
Beating below all the advice and words of warning and preparations I've been told to make, there's been one recurring theme: everyone's been telling me to that pretty soon, I'll have No Time To Knit. What, exactly, does this mean? Most of my knitting is done in odd snatched moments anyway - maybe actually working in the fiber arts full time will just mean that I won't feel quite as guilty about those stolen stitches and rows. Still, I've been feeling a weird urgency: to make things, finish things, put dead or dying things back into raw yarn form. I want to knit and wear something Right Away - you know the feeling?
This is Silky wool in a marvelous teal shade, held double to knit this sassy little thing:
Mari Lynn Patrick's Provincial Waistcoat from the Winter '06 IK. I've been thinking a lot about this yarn, lately: I've got multiple hanks of it lying around my office, but I don't think I've ever knit a full project from it before. I like the unexpected colors it comes in; I like the papery-flecky-tweedy thing it's got going on; I like its light weight and its crunchy/warm hand. I like the interesting, unplain stockinette it makes (Lolly's knitting a gorgeous Glee out of it), and I love the way it looks with texture (Julia's stealth-cable Irish Moss comes to mind). In this vest, I think it'll be light and useful for three seasons out of the year - though it lacks the sproinginess of the yak yarn the pattern calls for, I think the additional structure will be really nice. I have the perfect button-down to wear with it, too - a very prim, structured poplin with cap sleeves and a delicate stand-up collar. Just right against that textured, nubbly knit.
(I've been drawn to knitting other people's patterns, lately - I'm in the middle of serious planning and plotting and pattern-writing for other projects, and it's pleasant to just enjoy the knitting of a tightly, cleverly constructed pattern written by someone else. This waistcoat features some seriously cool details - all the waist shaping is hidden along ribbed gussets; back panels narrow to a ribbed waistband and then flare back up into wide bands across the shoulders - and there's a kind of satisfaction in just looking at the work and thinking about how it's built.)
