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Herringbones

This 50% llama, 50% wool Montera yarn from Classic Elite is lovely and luxurious, with a beautiful drape. It was suggested to me by Atelier Yarn staff when I came looking for cashmere and balked at the price.

domiKNITrix in Herringbones
domiKNITrix in Herringbones

I thought I would re-knit this yarn until it was threadbare! But I finally managed to figure out what this yarn wanted to be after completely ripping out at least 3 completed sweaters I had made from it, and 2 partially completed sweaters!

Most of this reincarnating took place before the Domiknitrix web site was even a twinkle in my eye, so I only have photos of one of the projects I frogged to reach this end result. You would be rolling on the floor (or rolling your eyes) if you could see everything this poor yarn tried to be before I finally got it right. I brought the above sweater, 90% complete to Christine Bylsma's very helpful Knitting Infirmary class at Stitches West last Spring. Even the gracious Christine rolled her eyes when I catalogued its problems.

I thought I would re-knit this yarn until it was threadbare! But I finally managed to figure out what this yarn wanted to be after completely ripping out at least 3 completed sweaters I had made from it, and 2 partially completed sweaters!

 

DomiKNITrix in Herringbones
DomiKNITrix in Herringbones

Since I had enjoyed knitting another cardigan with black Montera yarn, I had rushed out and bought 10 balls of it in natural. I was planning to knock-off a chunky sleeveless mock-neck Marc Jacobs shell that was hot a few years back, knit in reverse stockinette. I used 3 strands knit together to create a fabric that was 1.5 stitches to the inch. It knitted up in a weekend, but was far too bulky and warm for San Francisco. The design was one that flatters a petite and boyish figure, not my own. I don't usually think that everything makes me look fat, but that sweater did, since it added an inch of girth to my frame. So I ripped.

In the process, I found that the natural color sheds like a poorly groomed lapdog. It had shed like that as soon as I wound the first ball. It was not the re-knitting that did it. I swear the black Montera did not have this shedding problem.

Around that time, a bit of the natural yarn became the skull in the skull sweater. I then re-knit the rest of the yarn into a Nordic yoke pullover, using a color pattern called Florentine Frieze I had found in Barbara Walker's Second Treasury. I frogged this one because I'd not given enough ease under the arms, and I had flubbed up the color work by repeating a couple of rows.

Herringbones sleeve: the yarn overs evolve into herringone lace.
Herringbones sleeve: the yarn overs evolve into herringone lace.

One lesson I learned from the frogged Nordic sweater is that knitting yarns of two different colors together will pollute each yarn with fibers from the other. Since I had knit this pullover with teal and natural wool together, I found a lot of teal fibers in the frogged Montera yarn that absolutely could not be extricated. Due to aforementioned shedding problem, I ended up chucking the teal yarn, which was from a bulky cable sweater I'd made and worn during my teens and frogged in my twenties anyway. But I wasn't ready to give up on the natural Montera yet, even if it did seem like a different dye lot now with all those teal fibers.

I then made the unpolluted yarn into a cropped Joan Vass pullover I'd found in the Fall '98 Vogue Knitting. It had a ribbed torso and basketweave yoke and I knit it sleeveless, and even wore it once or twice. But it left me unenthused, and I still had 4 more balls of the yarn waiting around with nothing to do. So I ripped again, thinking I would knit all the yarn into one project and over-dye the end result.

The design was one that flatters a petite and boyish figure, not my own. I don't usually think that everything makes me look fat, but that sweater did, since it added an inch of girth to my frame. So I ripped.

Around this time I thought, this yarn just isn't meant for me, so I'll make it into a gift for my mother. I chose this herringbone texture from one of Barbara Walker's books, since it was just two pattern rows and very easy to do, especially on a circular needle. I even steeked it as a sign of how committed I was to this design.

When Mom came to visit, I fitted the almost complete cardigan on her and discovered I had knit it about 12 inches too small around and the cropped length just would not work for her figure. I had thought I would knit on a placket, but 6 inches on each side would not be a very cool placket for a woman who's trying to draw the eye away from her bust. Now I was stuck, since I had cut the knitting up the center. I could not rip and knit again without tying a knot at least once a row. I had to conclude this was a sweater for me, since it did fit.

I then brought the mostly complete Herringbones to Christine's class, where she showed me how to make a crochet chain to stabilize the front and pave way for a placket. Once I had the crochet chain, it was just a matter of selecting a texture for the front bands. I settled on stockinette, 1.5 inches wide with a picot edge and facing of equal width. The lovely weight the facing added to the sweater made it move beautifully, and the picot edge was unexpected with the wide band. I knew I finally had it.

So I made matching facings at the cuff and hem, and the result is as you see it today. This is not a color I wear much, so I was thinking of trying to ombre dip dye it so that it was darker on the bottom than at the top, like so many cute cardigans Prada sent down their runway last year. But I haven't dyed it, and I'm not sure that I will. The fiber pollution I thought was so obvious really isn't apparent in the finished cardigan, and it is so lovely I don't want to mess with it anymore.

Sometimes I have to put my foot down. This has been far too much drama for one project! It's time to move on to something new.


heartbreaker



start date
09/1/1997
end date
03/11/2004
yarn make
Classic Elite
yarn type
Montera
yarn quantity
10
yarn color
natural
needle size
9
gauge
4 stitches/inch

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