Old Projects: 2004 Lace Knitting, Part II - Sweaters

Copper Sweater

The yarn: I had bought 8 ounces of a merino/angora/flash blend during my mad dash to learn to spin gringo knitting yarn, and then turned it into this yardage-unknown vaguely spiral yarnish yarn with a commercial gold binder. I loved the colours, thought the yarn felt great, but was not really sold on the novelty factors, despite my efforts to overcome my prejudices against novelty yarns.

The Challenge: Could I make a wearable object (for me) from roughly 8 ounces of yarn? I felt confident that I could, so I roughed out a schematic for a cropped, short-sleeved, wide-necked sweater. Then I threw the simple lace panel in the middle of the front and went to work. Once it was assembled, the neck was too wide and I had some leftover yarn, so I did a simple single crochet border around the neck to firm it up.

I really liked this sweater, but I never wore it other than for these photos, so when Margaret the wonder-realtor loved it, this too went into her gift pile. The colours really suit her wonderfully.


Green Cotton Raglan

This, too, was a "use up stashed yarn" and "incorporate lace panel" practice project. I had 800 yards of this cotton yarn, it was summertime, and so it became this freehanded raglan. I still have this one, and I even wear it sometimes.

My one irritation with it would be that I screwed up my guesswork for the waist shaping, and ended up with more of a peplum-like flare than I ideally was after. I still have it on my list to do this one again, but right. And also without the glaring mistake in the first repeat, on the left hand side as you're looking at it. This is Susanna Lewis' variant on the traditional fern lace, I believe -- 6 eyelets in the ferns.

Again, simple single crochet edges pretty much everywhere, with the major challenge being the bias in the central lace panel needing something to flatten it out a bit. When I do a new one of these, I'll probably add something to obscure the weirdness of double decreases right at the edge of the pattern, change the angle of the hip-to-waist portion of the shaping, and I'm not sure, I may put the full fern in the sleeves. But it'll stay a 3/4 sleeve raglan with waist shaping and the length'll be about the same, as well as the neckline.