Flashy Feast

Sometimes my enthusiasms crowd each other out for a while. Something has set me off lately, and I've been having tremendous fun taking an interest in a bunch of silly, frivolous things -- more than I have in a long time. Hair! make-up! music! shopping! All things I've loved and devoted plenty of time to at other times, but that seem to have been pushed to the back for a while. (Wait, could the non-stop knitting and spinning have had anything to do with that? No.... :)

Anyway, let it be said that I am not an entirely serious person. And I love girlie things. I have been leafing through the mags, checking out clothes and looks, wearing mascara, and not forgetting to accessorize. People who see me in person probably wouldn't notice all that great a difference, but secretly it makes me extremely jolly. All this research and craftsmanship, though, do consume a certain amount of time, time when I could have been making diligent knitting progress. A wet manicure and a knitting project, for instance, do not mix well at all.

Maybe it's just a summer fling. But, for now, all too often, knitting must wait. Of course, all this is by way of explaining why things are creeping along at a snail's pace.

I can at least tell you about a decision made. I've decided the next project will be from the turquoise/purple/gray handspun. It seems to be calling to me now. After all, I've always pictured this yarn in a Chanel jacket, so there's a fashion connection. :) And it's suitably bright to accord with my current urge for self-decoration.

I've gone ahead and done some swatching. The handspun turns out to be a bulky yarn, best knit with US size 11 (8 mm) needles. It's interesting how a fairly organized looking yarn, with the three colors spiraling in a barber-pole effect, becomes a crazy every-which-way mix when knit. It's hard even to tell where the stitches begin and end.

Can you tell the swatch is three different stitch patterns? The bottom third is in moss stitch, the middle bit is in double moss stitch, and the top part is in a sort of improvised diagonal twill. In the picture, it all looks like a fine old mess, but in person, I think maybe the double moss stitch has the right balance of nubbiness and chaos.

For a Chanel jacket, luckily, texture is good. This yarn all by itself is a wild party of texture. (Note for later: with this yarn, a row counter might be a very, very good idea.)

What I'd really like to knit with it is Mary Heather Cogar's Chanel-ish Cardigan Jacket (there's a pretty one, slightly modified, on Koolsheep's Knit Blog, here). The pattern is in Greetings from Knit Cafe, by Suzan Mischer. Of course, it will have to be a loose adaptation of Mary Heather's pattern. Hers is in two colors of worsted weight yarn in a stitch pattern reminiscent of a houndstooth check. With this yarn, I somehow don't think it's going to need a colorwork stitch pattern, and I'll have to adapt the gauge to bulky. But I think there's a good chance it will work out.

I'm going to give it a good try, anyway. With enthusiasm. And the right accessories. :)