In every knitters life, there are moments that seize ones being and catalyse an enormous seething reaction where you didn't even know you needed something...and suddenly you can't live without it.
This does not happen to me very often. I am a knitter of some experience and immunity, and the longer I knit the less often I am totally possessed by something. Such was the case when I first saw Rowan's Juno sweater. I liked it, and part of the charm was surely the name (being as fond as I am of the live Juno) ...but dudes, the plunging neckline? The off the shoulder "I'm so cool I'm freezing" look? Not so much. Plus, it was knit of Rowan Wool/Cotton held double, and no part of that sounded fun. I let it go. It was almost a perfect sweater, but knitting is way too slow an art to do anything that's just "almost".
Then, something happened. Admittedly, when I am weak and run down from the peculiar madness that has become my life, I am strange and vulnerable, but dudes...check this sweater out. That's Vanessa's blog, pointed my way in a post by the esteemed Claudia, it's the same sweater, the same one I wandered right by with an "eh" last fall and now all off a sudden and without a word of a lie, with every fibre of my being...
I knew...I . Must . Have . It .
Vanessa swapped out the wool/cotton for another Rowan yarn, and made the front a little higher so that it wasn't quite so "come hither" and now it's perfect. Absolutely perfect. I started hunting the perfect yarn and Sunday at Magpie Yarn, there it was. Rowan's Scottish Tweed Aran in the incredibly enticing colour of "Storm Grey" (004)
There are people in the world... Stacy and Clint among them, who would say that a woman possessing the lofty height of 5'1" (almost) is not deserving (or in a position to be flattered by) a sweater with a large collar, but, my esteemed collegues...I say....
Bite me.
That sweater, (with Vanessa's modifications) rocks it so simply hard, that I actually am delusional enough to believe that I would look like a million bucks in it, short...or not. I'm knitting it.
In other news, my 15 and 3/4 year old daughter Meg knit socks.
These are her very first finished pair (there have been some false starts), and I am proud as punch of her. She did it all herself. You may note that Meg's ends are not woven in and she is wearing them anyway. (This proves that despite her height and gorgeousness, she actually carries my DNA.)
Yarn: Regia Cotton Color 4079 - pinched from her Mum's stash
Pattern: Ask Meg. She invented it.
(Styling - and the decision to match rainbow socks with a rainbow dress also Megan's. Current hair colour change not approved by me, which is probably why it is that colour. )