I’m sitting here with slightly aching shoulders from a recent swim, but I’m not going to be talking about that as much here. I’m trying to keep from boring the bajesus out of people who are not interested, so I’ve started a swimming blog – Slow as Christmas.
Today we’re talking about knitting. I’ve bought way too much sock yarn and so I am knitting a lot of socks. I prefer hand-knit wool socks. They’re quite warm, very comfy and just plain have a better fit than commercial sock. I have a wide, short foot. Maybe that has something to do with it.
I have been working mostly on shorter knitting projects recently, and socks are closer to the instant gratification category than my usual sweaters. I also made a scarf for a friend for her birthday, but forgot to take a picture. I’d knitted her a scarf back when I was in high school (I had totally forgotten about doing it!) and she mentioned that she was sorry it had had its day. So when I was visiting over Christmas, I told her to pick out some yarn and I’d knit her another one. I will say that I think the more recent one is of a high quality than my clumsy attempts at a garter stitch scarf when I was in my mid-teens.
So, I’m not doing much in the way of longer-term knitting projects. I do have a sweater on the needles for my son, too, but I think that’s probably not going to be done before he’s not much in need of the really warm sweaters. He moved to Virginia, and while they’re having one heck of a winter there, spring is less than a month away for them! His sweater is going to be a simple one – a yellow raglan in stockingette stitch. He seems to like simple designs and plain blocks of flame colors.
The problem is, I really do need to do some knitting for myself. The newest sweater I have was knit three years ago, and while it’s very nice, it’s the only sweater I own that’s really appropriate to wear to work. I live in a cold climate and need sweaters appropriate to the office.
The classic Norwegian sweater-jacket would certainly be perfectly appropriate for office wear. I’ve fooled around long enough, and really do need to break down and learn steeking. The sweater on the right will be very much the type I am going to make, though it will be a bit more figure-hugging, and being me, I will probably add some weird twist on it when I make it. If you think I might be drawing some inspiration from We Call Them Pirates across the band at the upper chest, you’d be very right! I know, I know, I use that pattern a lot in my knitting. What can I say? I love it. Since I work in IT, professional with a soupçon of quirky is okay dress-wise.
Goodness knows I’ve had that sweater in mind for years. I need to knit it.
And after that, I am going to knit myself an Aran. I’ve also been wanting one for years. Not really great office wear, but I don’t care. I’ve got a great pattern dictionary and will be able to knit in the round as a nice raglan. I’m going to have to design that one for myself, though. Since I am deep-bodied, the usual bulky Aran cables would make me look like a sausage. I think most of the body and sleeves will have a lot of texture work, then an intricate cabled panel down the front with cables down the top of the sleeves.
I did something similar in the sweater I made for my father for Christmas last year. He’s got a round, deep body and too much cable work will create an illusion of more depth than would suit that particular body shape. I was even worried that raglan sleeves would be too much in the shoulders, because he is broad-shouldered, but it actually worked nicely. I don’t worry about the raglan for myself. For all that I am a swimmer, I have narrow shoulders. Anything that brings a slight illusion of greater shoulder breadth can only work to my advantage!
