Anu Sweater

Junko Okamoto has a new pattern, Anu, and while I love her designs, I always seem to love them more for other people than for me. But, when I saw Anu, I wanted it immediately and began searching for the perfect yarn. It calls for fingering weight yarn. I love Harrisville Shetland and Jamieson & Smith 4 ply but my swatch of Shetland, using the needle to get gauge, the floats showed through. The only other fingering weight yarn I’ve loved for colorwork was the Cambrian Mountain Wool which I had ordered from the U.K.

This is the Eleri Cowl I made using the Cambrian Mountain Wool. For a fingering weight yarn, it was so perfect for colorwork. The floats do not show through, even using a 3.5 mm needle, which makes larger, more open stitches than would a 2.5 mm needle. There are black floats behind the white yarn and even with that extreme contrast, they don’t show through.

I checked to see about ordering more of the Cambrian Wool but the colors are very limited and the sweater would end up being almost the same colors as the cowl and I don’t know why that was an issue because look what I ended up getting for the sweater!

The colors really are very similar but by ordering from ESK instead of a shop in the U.K., the yarn is already here and I’ve already cast on.

Manos del Uruguay’s Alpaca Heather is a new yarn for Eat, Sleep, Knit and a new yarn for me.

The yarn arrived yesterday (Friday). I immediately ripped into the box, grabbed a skein of the gray (Kohl) yarn and swatched.

Even with it being a sport weight yarn, I was able to get almost perfect gauge with the recommended needle size. My row gauge is a bit off so I’ll pay attention to that and make sure I don’t separate the sleeves too soon.

I originally ordered the gray (Kohl) for the main color but, after thinking about it, was not sure the blue (Petrol) would show up with the gray so I ordered the burgundy (Bing Cherry) and I think the Bing Cherry is a better choice for the Petrol, Goji Berry (pink) and Honeycomb (gold).

Eat, Sleep, Knit’s description says ” . . the perfect choice for your next colorwork project, and it’s soft enough to wear next to the skin.”

Alpaca can be a bit scratchy/itchy but this yarn is not at all itchy to me. The swatch is so soft after soaking. This is the first swatch I think I’ve ever made that felt almost totally dry after squeezing it in a towel. It was about 8 last night when I soaked it, squeezed the water out, pinned it on the mat to dry and turned the fan on. About 9:30 I went in to check on it and it was already dry so I grabbed it, measured the stitches for gauge and cast on for the sweater.

This is how far I got last night but my chores are all done for today and I’m ready to get some serious knitting done. I would love to get as far as starting the colorwork today.

Of course, there will be frequent updates. I’m excited about this project.