What’s Old is New Again

The holiday season is upon us, and this is the time of year when I take stock of everything I have in the works to try to wrap up a few loose ends before a new year begins. As a general rule, I don’t typically make (knit, sew, weave) gifts for other people during the holidays – I’ve done enough deadline knitting in my time to know I’d rather avoid that stress if I can. Instead, when I’ve decided to make something for someone, it ends up being a surprise gift on whatever day I’ve arbitrarily finished it. Who says gift-giving has to be reserved for a holiday or birthday? I’ve had a mind to start a few new projects for other people lately, but I thought for the sake of my pile of unfinished work I should probably clear out what’s there before moving on to something else. The first and easiest project to wrap up is a pair of socks for myself, knit using my own handspun yarn.

This yarn took me so long to make (over a year!) and was the first skein of yarn I chain-plied, which is a technique used when you want to preserve the color changes in the dyed fiber rather than blending them together in the plying. It starts with one continuous spun strand and, as you add ply twist, you also create what is essentially a very elongated crochet chain turning your initial single strand into a 3-ply finished yarn. This fiber is 100% BFL wool and I’m really happy with the way the colors striped.

This type of self-striping, handspun yarn is exactly what I was going for. Even after creating a 3-ply, it was still thinner than typical sock yarn - no wonder it took me so long to spin! Generally I knit my socks with a contrasting heel, toe, and cuff so that I don’t run out of yarn before I finish the second sock, but this time I had plenty of yarn to spare. I could probably knit a third sock with what’s left of the ball. 100g of fiber went a long way with these socks. I’m nervous about how hard-wearing they will be considering how thin the yarn was, but luckily there’s a reserve when I have to make repairs.

As usual, I knit my typical 2×1 rib for these socks. I like that it gives the fabric a bit of elasticity, but still allows the color to be the spotlight rather than a complicated fabric texture. I this case, I wanted it to be all about the yarn. Now that’s two projects I’ve made out of handspun this year! I can finally check that off the list.

Speaking of completing things that are long overdue, here’s one from the archives that has been patiently waiting for its time to shine. I love making things for other people, and those projects often take priority over things for myself, so you’ll see a trend here that things in this post that I’ve finally gotten around to wrapping up all happen to be projects I was knitting for myself. It’s easy to set those aside when something new or more meaningful comes along.

This is a sweater that I knit in 2013 – ten years ago. I knit the body, I knit the sleeves, I connected them and knit the yoke. I knit the collar. I blocked the sweater and wove in all the ends. I even ordered a custom zipper and bought matching thread. Then I carefully folded the sweater, bundled it together with the leftover yarn and zipper, and stuck it in a bin for ten years where it sat waiting to be finished. I took it out again 4 or 5 years ago and cut it open, prepared for zipper installation, and then put it away again. But this is the year I was determined to get it done.

And I did! I actually finished it! I had never installed a zipper in a handknit sweater before and it felt very intimidating, but I forced myself to sit down and just DO. IT. It doesn’t look perfect on the inside, but at this point done is better than perfect. For context, this sweater is so old that the yarn I used to knit it (Cascade Yarns Soft Spun) has since been discontinued. The pattern is Hlekkur by Védís Jónsdóttir and is based on traditional Icelandic design. Traditionally knit with unspun Icelandic wool, I chose to use the Cascade Soft Spun instead because it was a bit softer, and easily accessible. The softness and loosely spun quality of the yarn does mean it won’t be as hard-wearing as Icelandic wool would be, and the sweater will be prone to pilling, but it will be very warm and cozy.

Sadly for me, while the sweater has remained the exact same size for the past ten years, I… have not. So this sweater now belongs to Kyle, but we won’t tell him that I have posted this next photo otherwise he’ll be upset with me.

If we travel back even farther in time, we’ll find another unfinished sweater that I started planning back in 2009. The designer had posted this sweater on her blog in 2008 and I wanted to make it sooo badly, and I wanted to use the exact same colors that she did. I was in undergrad at the time and living off ramen and credit cards, so it took me several years to hunt down and purchase all 8 colors of Cascade 220 that I needed, but it was worth the wait. I finally started (and finished) knitting this sweater in 2012 while I was in grad school.

Once again, I had already woven in all my ends, knit the hems, finished the hood, ordered a zipper… and then put it away in the same bin that would eventually become home to Hlekkur as well. These zippers really do get in the way of finishing a project!

Luckily for me, and sadly for Kyle, this sweater actually does still fit me after all these years. I live in zippered, hooded sweatshirts and this feels just like that. Baggy, cozy, comfortable. Kyle is disappointed that this fits me because he wanted a sweater to match little boy Rolo, but he will just have to settle for borrowing it from time to time.

And now traveling even further back in time, if you can believe it, I have managed to finish the cross-stich pillow cover that I started way back in 2004. I can’t believe the stitching is done! Do you think it will be another 20 years before I finally get around to turning it into a pillow?

I have even more finished projects to show you, but it is time to bid you adieu for the time being. In the meantime, I am sending you woolly warm wishes.