memory yarn

Mooncalf recently posted asking which of our handknits actually end up getting worn. It's a good question, and makes for a nice reminiscent post, so I thought I'd go for a trundle down memory yarn. I rarely get compliments on my handknits, and I take that as the biggest compliment of all: few people would ever guess...


Brown langora bolero, from Rebecca. It wasn't as big a hit at first, but since I started wearing a series of dresses in autumnal colours to work, this gets worn all the time. ALL the time. It's cuddly and at the same time not too cardiganish, and I love it.



Rusted Root. Looking slightly pill-y now: I suspect that's cashmerino for you. But still, a wardrobe staple, again hitting that boundary between cuddly and cosy on the one hand, and sharp and cool on the other. As time goes on I think it, like all handknits perhaps?, will become more cosy and less sharp, but I am still in love with the curves and the versatility of this one.



Bulky Cabled Cardigan. For those days when you just want to wrap yourself in warm tweed armoury and say pah! to the world. But in a stylish fitted way. The fashion mags keep claiming 'chunky knits are in!', and I look at those draped, sculpted piles of cables they have on high-end fashion shoots and think, I could make one of those! If I thought about it hard enough! And then I don't think, so this will have to do as my high-impact, high-texture Vogue Knit. It's not all that voguey, really.

Thermal and the Henley Imperfect have started to look like wardrobe classics, too. They have travelled to London and Dublin and been stroked and admired, and their slimness makes them perfect professional garments. Hooray.

Of course, knitting is always like this. I never have disasters. No no no.



I certainly didn't just bundle this one in a bag and send it straight to Oxfam without even trying to fix it, did I? Perish the thought!

Of course, the real classics are the socks. Which get worn day in, day out between September and March. Socks, solid wool socks: only one pair has died on me, the most of them are stalwart as ever. I'm not sure what I ever did without them.

Short Attention Span Knitting

So I finished the Noro yarn scarf, almost in my sleep, so simple and seductive was the lace:

It's short and has pretty colours and tucks nicely under a high-necked coat. But it still feels like paper to the touch.



And thus I was seduced into starting the balloon-sleeve top. This is going to be yet another of those kidsilk frivolities that gets started and never worn. I know it. But shh! I'm enjoying knitting with air and dreamy softness, and hopefully I can hang the resulting frivolity on the wall as art, even if I never end up wearing it. Judging from most Rowan publications, that's the most suitable fate for their garments...