I feel like I have so many old projects to share with you that you’re missing out on some ongoing works in progress! So let me catch you up on that today. One that I have been chipping away at for most of the month of July has been this lovely thing.
This is probably the darkest jumper I’ve knit in a few years! Here are the details:
Pattern: Ilha, by Orlane Sucche (Ravelry link).
Needles: 3.5mm for the body, 3mm for the cuffs and hem, 3.75mm for the sleeves (because my gauge always shrinks when I work on small circumferences. I’ve learned this the hard way!).
Yarn: Pure Silk by Knitting for Olive in the colour Deep Petroleum Blue, 3.5 balls.
It is technically still a work in progress because I haven’t finished the neckline yet, and all the ends remain to be woven in. For the neckline, the pattern has you pick up stitches and work a few rows of stockinette. I’m not really a fan of that because I find it stretches out a good bit on me over time – probably to do with how I put things on/pull off – so I’m wondering what to do. I could pick up and just work a 2×2 rib similar to the cuffs and hem, or I could take the very quick option of working a few rows of crochet. I think I will try it on and see how it looks before I make any decisions.
As for the yarn, I have wanted to try the Pure Silk for a long time. It wasn’t really on my radar. Silk tends to be fairly expensive and usually not produced in a sensitive or considerate way (i.e., they kill the silkworms). Knitting for Olive have the OEKO-Tex certification for this yarn, which means that the silk is harvested after the worm has emerged from its chrysalis. At some point, I realised that this yarn is actually very good value for a pure silk – about €9 for 250m – meaning that you’d easily get a summer top out of it for about €36. So I was curious to see what it would be like. I ordered some directly from the Knitting for Olive website. The colour range is mostly quite muted; the colour I chose is a bit strange! It looks very much like a basic grey, but it has a cool, green and blue tint to it as well. Whilst I would not class it within the ‘petrol’, or teal, colour family, it still suits me because of those cool tones. And, most importantly, it still fulfills the reason I chose the colour in the first place – to wear with my lighter-coloured skirts and trousers, the majority of which are some shade of pink.
If this looks fairly large to you, then you would be correct in your perception. It is a birthday present for a friend and it needs to be delivered in about two weeks! I always find it curious how I seem to finish other jumpers quickly when I have sleeves waiting for me on another, more pressing, work…
The pattern is called In Stillness 2 (presumably there is a ‘1’?) and it’s by Alicia Plummer. I have knit one of her patterns before, which I wrote about a while ago, and I figured that there would be no surprises with this one. I won’t write too much about this until it’s finished, but suffice to say for the moment that it’s going grand.
The wool is Studio Donegal Soft Donegal in the colour (wait for it!) 5502! It’s a sort of olive colour with a dark yellow undertone and a multitude of complimentary flecks throughout. 10000000% not my colour, but that doesn’t matter because it’s not for me. I think it will suit its recipient very well indeed.
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