As you know, I've been knitting a test run fair isle project to prepare for the main event, which is to be an Alice Starmore Oregon vest. Well, I finished the fair isle cowl, knitted with a cotton/acrylic blend from Lion brands. As it was being knitted, we all felt it was very long, and I did struggle a bit with the tension and the carrying of the wool at the back - sometimes too loose, sometimes too tight - so, I was pleased to finish it and move on. Cotton as a fibre doesn't have much elasticity and while this is cozy soft, I do feel it shows every imperfection in the knitting. But more importantly, I don't know that I particularly like the feeling of having my entire neck swathed in volumes of stuff. I love wearing scarfs but not so sure of this thing. Perhaps I'll wear it to the garden in these freezing mornings.
As a finishing technique, you hem the top and bottom of the cowl.
Perhaps it would help if I wore it with some coordinating effort. I was always impressed with the ladies in Me-Made-March that they went to such effort to coordinate their outfits and accessories. I'm a bit slapdash in that department. Anyway, perhaps a nice coordinating blouse would help with the look of this thing (or not).
Anyway, moving onto the main event. I'm really excited to actually start work on the Oregon vest. Typically, I found it easier to work with the wool instead of the cotton. My tension is quite even, the stranding at the back of the work isn't that difficult because through most of the pattern in the swatch you aren't actually carrying the wool very far - a few stitches at most.
As mentioned previously, I'm a fairly tight knitter so my quick estimation of the stitches in the swatch tell me I'll need to go up a needle size from the 3.25 to probably a 3.5. I didn't like having to cut the wool at the beginning and the end of the swatch because I felt it was so wasteful and being the nervous nelly that I am, I wasn't confident that I'd have enough wool. So I kind of did the bare minimum of a swatch. Usually, it should be a complete square but mine is more of a rectangle.
I love the colours and the constant but subtle changes.
It really doesn't look like much wool when it's sitting here on my sewing table, waiting to form up into patterns. Beautiful though.
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