Seriously, does a day without a regular caffeine fix do this to you? I wonder….
Local department store has our regular January sales every year, you know, if you read back to a previous post, how I turned from a friendly, considerate, kind and generous woman to an absolutely mental, evil, demon of a stalker, who watched every move this woman made, who had this yarn that I HAD to have. who wouldn’t put it down, who wondered around and asked the sales rep what she could knit with it, who flipped through pattern books and all the time, me, watching every move from the corner of my eye, who had a partner in crime watch her too…..remember? As soon as she put it back, hands, several hands, mine and my accomplice grabbed it before anyone else did. I’m happy to say, this years sale was different. Maybe it was without the caffeine fix. I was calm, very calm, very unusual for me and so not me.
There before my eyes, lay a full bag of this purple yarn, in fact two bags. Yup…purple. OK I love purple, alot, to admire and ooh and ahhhh, but to wear? It’s totally out of my colour palette. But this purple was different, it wasn’t too bright, too in your face, it was calm, warm and oozing with yumminess. This purple yarn was calling me…..Yarnsnob, I’m yours…..take me home. Was this yarn actually talking to me? Has yarn ever talked to you? For brief moment, I thought I was going crazy!
So under my arm it went and without a moment hesitation or a fight with anyone else, went to the cashier, handed over my credit card and so home it came with me.
I had a project in mind for it but strangely and totally out of the ordinary, I SWATCHED. I NEVER SWATCH, seriously, I do not swatch for anything. I consider myself a very very naughty knitter, so please do not, I repeat do not follow my in my footsteps. To make this more out of the ordinary, I blocked the swatch and waited for it to dry and to make it even more out of the ordinary, I counted the stitches one by one over and over again! Now I do believe something was totally wrong with me that day.
The purple yarn, or should I say Aubergine became this…..
Alexandria Cardigan a pattern I’ve longed to knit. It required an icord at the front…never attempted before, short rows for the sleeves, done once and messed up with my Arwen cardigan, picking up stitches from 3 rows down and BO together to create a kind of rolled edge effect for the sleeves and neckline, which I did for the sleeves but did and icord bind off for the neckline.
So, a little about this yarn. Rowan had a batch of previously discontinued undyed Organic Merino DK and as one off special, dyed colours exclusively for the John Lewis chain of stores throughout UK for the 2010 January sales.
Changes made to the pattern?
Neckline: icord BO
Sleeves: 11 inches before start of eyelet
Dec: ssk ( slipped 1 knitwise, slipped 1 purlwise, ktog) (nice and ne
Inc: picked up st from row below from the back and knit (almost invisible inc)
Omit the first row of cluster pattern so the front panels lay flat
Add button for closure.
Maybe I should stay off the caffeine? It certainly had a very weird effect on me, I must say!
