There is a crispness that is unexpected in a double stranded yarn.
I don't go to a smaller needle ever for a bottom ribbing. The last thing I want is for the bottom of a sweater to pull in. I didn't like it in the eighties and I see no reason to change it now. I rarely change needles for sleeve ribbing either. The only place I do often choose a smaller needle is on collars. Collars often stretch and open. I perfer a closer fit on collars and the stability a smaller needle gives.
I remember when I was young and bell bottoms were a thing and my mom saying for her they were old fashioned. I understand this now. This is the third time in my life that wide legged pants are a thing. And leggings? They wore very very slim fitting pants like that in the early 60's. Anybody else remember how they had little straps at the bottom to go under your foot so the pants stayed at the bottom of your leg? They were a 60s fabric version of leggings.
The thing I like now about fashion that has significantly changed is that skirt lengths don't matter. There are people wearing minis and knee length and long maxi length skirts for whatever time of day or season. There are high waists and low waists at the same time. Wide legs and leggings are both available. When I was younger, there were no options.
I like that blending, that easing of 'styles' so that all of us can wear what we are comfortable in. It's the same as how there was fashion for the wealthy through history and clothes for the rest of us. If my shapes and styles are not what you feel good in, that's great. It is all okay.
I personally like a more unstructured fit. Less fitted has always been what I was comfortable in. My idea of a perfect sweater is Joji Locatelli's Elton sweater. I love that those styles are available to me and that I can make them by sewing or by knitting.
Historically, the very biggest fashion advance in the last century has been pants. It is and has been socially acceptable for most of my life for women and girls to wear pants. I do recall in grade one, in bitterly cold winter, how the teacher said the girls were allowed to wear pants on the bus for warmth. And before very long, nobody said anything if you were a just kid in pants at school. By the third grade girls were wearing pants as often as not. I also remember that my mom said girls were not allowed to wear jeans to school and that shortly after she said that, even the principals daughter was wearing jeans to school. That was about grade four or five. And now, holy cats, women and girls even get pockets on their store brought clothes.
My personal fashion is clothes for the rest of us. Clothes that work for the way we live. I like watching fashion and the blogs and vlogs of what the rich wear as much as anybody but wear it? No. I'm not art. I'm just me. And so it is.
It's going to be dicey to finish the Geddy. The floors are going in on Wednesday so access to the other bag of the teal yarn is a no go. I will need two more balls of the yarn so I will knit till the teal is gone. Then I will have some fun and knit on something entirely different. A new cast on is in the wind.
