That’s a mouth full. I’ll have to come up with a better name.
If you hang around on Flickr, I’ve been inundating you with photos of this wool forever. If not, then it’s news. It has been in the works since Rhinebeck (NYS Sheep & Wool Festival) last year, when I bought some dyed rovings from Fantom Farm (no website). At the time I was inspired by a woman’s sweater I saw at Rhinebeck, which was cream with rainbow stripes on the yoke. I bought the rovings in rainbow colors, and a brown Rambouillet fleece for the body, then totally changed my mind about the sweater. First, the fleece, which is a gorgeous soft thing, didn’t like being carded. Neps galore. It loves being combed, so all is not lost, but I’ll leave combing a sweater’s worth of wool to a better woman. At MA Sheep & Wool last weekend, I found some gorgeous replacement wool for the body of the sweater. Yeah, I took a shortcut. After washing all that fleece, I didn’t want to repeat the experience anytime soon. It’s just so nice when the bathtub stays clean for more than 24 hours.
This is so soft and squishy. It will make a fine sweater body.
Then I started to change my mind about the rainbow stripes, which is bound to happen after 8 months, right? After visiting the Fantom Farm guys at Vermont Sheep and Wool, Rhinebeck, and Cummington last weekend, I have all the colors I need for the new and improved yoke, and they’re all spun, to boot!
These are all 3+ oz., unknown yardage (I just washed them this morning), worsted weight two ply yarns, some mohair/wool and some all Romney. I’ll have them going from darkest at the bottom up to the acid green at the neck in a yoke with slight Bohus leanings. As much as I covet all the Bohus sweaters people are knitting, one whiff of angora and I spend the rest of the day blowing my nose, so this will have to do. The plan is not to do a full-on Bohus, but just borrow how the colors overlap a little in stripes, with those lovely little peaks and valleys, working those purl stitches in to soften the transition. It’s so brilliant a method. Surely lots will be lost without the use of the angora, but the yarns do have a bit of a halo of wooliness, so hopefully this will work out well.
Swatching will commence as soon as the yarns are dry, then a quick chart, a search for a yarn-cutting implement that the European airport screeners won’t remove from my possession, and this top-down sweater of fabulosity is going to be my airplane knitting. Oh, and I have to spin the yarn for the body. :P
I’ll be back tomorrow with yet another new project that’s well underway.
