Strrrripes

Strrrripes
Originally uploaded by taikasatama

aka my new hoodie:) I finally figured out the best way to use up some of the ugly brown Rowan wool cotton I got on ebay thinking of was another colour. Pairing with dark purple did the trick. I spent ages looking for a good purple and finally settled for Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed because of the Tweed flecks. Of course, as I walked out the store after buying them, I realised Colinette's Velvet Damson colourway might have been even more perfect.

But I'm happy with what I have. The tweedy yarn is absolutely wonderful to knit and to look at, I could just keep starting at the knitted fabric. And Wool-Cotton is a great yarn, I can't fathom why it doesn't seem to be more popular. I also decided this hoodie was a good project to learn how to knit a top-down seamless sweater.

And on I went. I used a set of directions found here on Ravelry. I skipped making a mini sweater and went straight into the latter explanation. It was all good and I couldn't be happier with how things turned out. I also have my own list of little tweaks I can do next time, but I think everyone needs to try it themselves and found out which things work for them and which don't.

The only thing I don't like about this project is that I am knitting back and forth because I want the hoodie to have a zipper in the front and I thought steeking was more effort than purling through every other row. Let me tell you, steeking is a walk in the park compared with all the purling when the rows are loong. (Not that I have a problem with purling, it just takes a fraction of a second longer than to knit and also a little extra hand motions. I'm lazy like that. )

At the moment I have knitted the main part and next I'll moce onto the sleeves. The great thing is that the upper part of the sleeves is already done along the body, so they shouldn't take as much time as they normally take. After sleeves it's just a matter of attaching a zipper and knitting a hood. Which I have never done before either, so it'll be interesting:)