From Minnesota with love

For my birthday last year I received a super special gift from a friend and fellow knitter who lives in Minnesota: a skein of handspun. 

The yarn itself was really exciting, but layered on top of the gift was a coincidence that made it really exciting for me.  Almost two years earlier, I had commented on flickr about a beautiful baby blanket that I saw in a friend's photo. He told me it was made by a super cool knitter/spinner he knows in Minneapolis.  End of story? Not quite.  Turns out, Stephanie special ordered this yarn for me from the very same spinner: Nuttnbunny.  There's nothing quite like the feeling of getting a truly spot-on present.

I considered making mittens or a hat with the skein, but in the end decided to use it for something that would be treated a bit more gently: a sweater. 



I was snowbound when I shot this; perhaps that accounts for my sour countenance.



Details:

Pattern: #22 Garter Yoke Cardigan, by Melissa LeBarre

Yarn: Zealana Eco Cashmere Merino Blend (body), Nuttnbunny

Needles: 4.5mm

Start: September 5

Finish: September 20

I had been wanting to make this sweater since I saw it in Knit 1 magazine two years ago, a feeling that was underscored when I met the designer, Melissa, during our roadtrip to Webs.  Quite a few knitters have knit with the colorblock modification and my calculations told me that I would have enough of the handspun to make it work.  My initial instinct was to work the body using a grey yarn, but (a) I have almost as many grey sweaters as I do horizontally striped shirts and (b) I thought the grey might accent the purple and pinks of the handspun in a rather 6th grade way.  There's quite a bit of brown in the yarn, so I decided to go that route instead.

Very glad that I did.  The yarn was a bit of a leap of faith for me, as I ordered it online, but it matches exceedingly well.  The cheap wood buttons make me quite happy, too.  I am less happy, however, with my button sewing abilities.  I sewed the buttons too close to the buttonband's outer edge, not realizing that this would result in noticeable gapping in the region of my bosoms.  Easily enough fixed, but let's be realistic:  I finished the sweater in September and only got around to sewing on the buttons on December 27th.  This is how she's going to stay for the foreseeable future.  And that's OK by me.