New Leaf for Rowan Wool Cotton

I've just returned from a week and a half here



and it was wonderful. Maybe you have to live in NYC to say this about Gloucester, but -- it smelled good.

While I was away I got some knitting done on my new project.
After the Gatsby letdown, I've started designing a little sweater with my beloved Wool Cotton yarn.

Here is a humble little sketch (I'm no Fitz Henry Lane) --



It starts with about 5 inches in the King Charles Brocade stitch pattern. I like the different diamond motifs in various stitch patterns in the Vogue Knitting book, and will be incorporating more diamonds in the rest of the sweater. I'm going to break the C. Rex though, and continue in seed stitch for most of the body of the sweater.

I put in a knitted-in hem, and that was fabulous. It was a bit tricky knitting it up while following the stitch pattern, but I went slowly and it worked out nicely. I love the clean finish of the knitted up hem. I put a hem in my saddle-shoulder sweater, but I didn't love sewing it up and I think I tugged it off center a bit. The knit-up hem solves all of that.

Heart Hat

I made this heart hat, for the July book in Knit the Classics, Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I loved that book. Probably never would have picked it up on my own, but that's part of what's so cool about a book club, that you end up reading (and appreciating) things outside your normal purview.





Anyway, the hat is from Zimmerman's Knitting Workshop (p.156). The heart is worked first and then stitches picked up all around and knitted down to form the bonnet part. It's done entirely in garter stitch except for an I-cord border & ties. This was made with various materials I had on hand. The heart is some fuchsia washable wool, the grey bonnet part is Paton's merino, and the I-cord cast-off border and ties are also a wool-blend worsted weight that I happened to have hanging around. I also crocheted a line of pink around the edge when it was finished to get some more pink in there as a balance.

Vive la silliness!