Neon New Beginnings
It has been a while since I’ve updated my site consistently. Renewal of the domain provides a great annual reminder not to let my website and space go to waste! As I’m paying for another year on this website, I’m feeling renewed in using it.
I recently cast off an amazing project that I like as a new beginning to updating my website, and being recently single out of a 10-year relationship.
The origins of this sweater are a little sad. When I was first conceptualizing it, I was planning a wedding with my then partner. I wanted to knit a sweater for myself for the engagement photos. I had a red tweed and this stunning, vibrant Spectrum Fibre DK in Pink Tinsel as my options. Knowing that I love pink and this would likely be the outfit for the photos with street art in Detroit, the creative team went with this yarn choice. I had been wanting to knit the Cozy Classic Raglan by Jessie Mae as her patterns are very clearly written and she is great at writing patterns for curvy womxn. Only a couple of weeks after casting on, the relationship was over and I needed to resuscitate my joy for this sweater and detach it from the event in which it was conceived.
With yarn this stunning, it surprisingly wasn’t hard. I decided to make a sexy cropped sweater with a little pouf sleeve. Something to wear over a dress to give me a waist or with high-waisted jeans!
I primarily followed the pattern’s directions for the sweater. I did decrease the sleeves down to 60 stitches slowly then at the sleeve decreased that by 22 stitches to get the slight pouf. I decided to do a 3 stitch i-cord bind off rather than the ribbing. I semi-aggressively blocked the collar for the sweater so it would sit a little lower around my collar bone. The yarn drapes beautifully and is so cozy.
This is not the first garment I have knit pain into. Knitting is definitely a form of therapy for me as well as a creative outlet, means of joining the slow fashion movement and keeping my hands busy! I love the aspect of making something beautiful and artisanal out of the pain and bad situation. Now I have something that will keep me warm and comforted even though it was born out of a devastating break up.
XX
Susan