All about the Twisted

As I was digging through the projects last week, my hands kept wavering over a sweater that I started last spring and knit in a hurry, and then dropped only for it never to be seen again.  I think I kept looking at it as sweet release from small green tubes.  I was getting a little tired of the idea of little green tubes on my daughter in law's Still Light Tunic.  The sweater looked like this in May.

I knit that far on it in just a few days and remember how much fun it was working with that yarn.  The yarn is Sheepjes Donna, a long discontinued line.  I think the construction of the yarn makes it such a pleasure to work with.  It has such bounce, such life.  

I stopped after I tried on the sweater, shortly after this picture was taken.  I did not like where I had worked the increases at the bustline and felt the sweater would be so much better if I changed their placement.  The sweater sat since that try on day, waiting to be pulled back and reworked.  That is my usual response to things I am not happy with.  Make them sit.  Not an effective response and I am working on that.

I let my hands waver just a little too long the other day and voila, magic.  

It is very much a 'not thinking' knitting project and without feeling I worked on it at all, the offending section was pulled back and reknit, with the increase stitches added in slightly different place.  I just kept on knitting and am now at the waist.  I zip along without even realizing just how long I have been working on it and how much has been done. I love when that happens.

In a way, I am glad that I did not finish it last spring.  This year, one of the things that seems to be showing up in new designs is a split hem treatment, sometimes almost a split side treatment.  There is a beautiful example of this at the Rainey Sisters Blog  .  Another is the shirttail hem, styled after the long backed men's shirt style like the Lipstick pattern has .  I honestly don't know if either suit me, so I plan to pull out the old tools to see if they work.  (The old tools are from a sweater class I took many moon's ago with Sally Melville.  It is like playing paperdolls with your silhouette, and it will tell me what the most effective length will be.)  

My original plan was just a plain sweater, just something simple and ordinary with the only fancy touch being the subtle twisted stitch detail that I loved so much about this pattern in the book.  (The book being A Knitter's Handy Book of Top Down Sweaters  by Ann Budd and the pattern being a Twisted Little Raglan) 

I mention that twisted stitch detail and I think that is where I will finish up today's sweater love. 

I love that detail and the small intricate interest it brings without overwhelming or being difficult to execute.  I stop and it look at the way it looks in a field of otherwise plain stitches quite often.  So perfect.

Yes, this is another project using twisted stitches.  That I was inspired by this and am now working another far more detailed twisted stitch project is no surprise at all.