Adventures in Photography

Every winter I knit a sweater that becomes my go-to sweater for the season.  The pattern, the yarn choice, the color, the knitting, it all just clicks in place to become the perfect sweater.  Previous favorites have included my Whisper Cardigan, my Contented Cardigan, and my Aidez Cardigan (which never made the blog, but feel free to follow the Rav link if you can.  it is a pretty fantastic sweater).

This year my favorite sweater (so far) is hands down my Walpole Cardigan. Remember, that cardigan I started back in December, and never mentioned again.

I did indeed finish it, and I've been wearing it pretty much non stop ever since. It goes with jeans.  It goes with jammies.  It is pretty much a perfect sweater.

Today seemed like as good a day as any to finally get some pictures of it.  After all, I took a shower this morning, and my hair was especially clean.  I smell really good too, but since this is a blog in the interwebs, you'll just have to take my word for it.  But seriously, I smell amazing.  You wish you could hug me just so you could smell me.  Sweet Pea has been hugging me all day.

My plans to take a picture ran into the usual snag.

I suck with a self timer.

I got this.

(although my hair looks kinda fab, so blurry isn't all bad)

And this.

(although my legs look especially slender so it isn't all bad.)

And this.

(this one?  I got nothing.  It is bad all around)

Frustrated, I turned to my eight year old.  Why Bird?  The child who broke my very expensive camera the last time I handed it to her?  She happened to be the closest child.  And I momentarily forgot about the broken camera in a fit of insanity and desperation.  And in her defense, she isn't four years old any more.

She was beyond ecstatic to be handed the long forbidden camera.  Infected with shutter fever, she took roughly two dozen pictures.  They all look like this.

I like to imagine the blurry is caused by the waves of my good smell wafting from my body.

In despair I turned to my five year old who was begging "Let me try, let me try!"

I am going to need A LOT of chocolate to help me come to term with the reality that her pictures were better than mine.

I finally settled for an un-modeled hanger photo.

Pattern:  Walpole

Yarn:  Schoeller + Stahl, Elena, 9 skeins

Needles:  Size 5 Addi Turbos, and probably some size 5 dpns, maybe my bamboo ones if I found the missing one from the set, which I don't remember doing, so maybe not...

Modification:  I did a custom size, since my gauge was not even close to the pattern gauge.  There are detailed notes on my rav project page.

Review:  This sweater is every bit as cuddly as I hoped it would be.  I knit it with a polyester linen blend.  It was rather stiff after blocking, but has gotten progressively softer with each wearing.  Like cotton would.  It did block in crazy ways.  It grew longer.  I made the sleeves long, but now they are crazy long.   Which is ok, because I kinda love the crazy long sleeves.  It also shrunk width wise.  So the sweater doesn't have as much ease as I originally intended.  It would be nice with another two inches of ease, but the lack there of doesn't detract from my love.

Wanna see something else crazy?

The twisted ribbing on the sleeves does not hold it's shape.

It doesn't pull in, it is stretched out. Which isn't a problem per se, it just something that is.

But the twisted rib on the collar?

It didn't stretch out like I blocked it.  It pulls in, much like the sleeve ribbing ought to do.

Weird.

Being a polyester linen blend it isn't the warmest of sweaters, but it will carry me through spring, through the cool summer nights, through fall, and into the beginning of next winter.  Where I will then knit a new favorite sweater.

So there it is.  My absolute favorite sweater of the winter (so far.)

In other new I went button shopping today.

Oh my arch nemesis buttons.

But that is a story for another day.