I don’t know how many years I’ve been eyeing Nanne Kennedy’s toothy, honest, gorgeously dyed yarn at fiber festivals. Last fall, with my best enabler at my side, I stopped petting the yarn and purchased. I have no regrets. Not one.
My original intention was to use this femme pink yarn for a certain sweater I’ve been lusting after (I’m looking at you, Lorna Suzanne). I decided to be as prissy as I want the sweater to be and swatched, swatched, swatched, only to find I couldn’t get a fabric I liked at a gauge I wanted. I think I’m going to need a bit of Starcroft Light to find the just-right match of honest yarn and pattern for my dreamy, prissy sweater.
So what’s a knitter to do when she’s got a bag full of pink wool this good and a hankering for one of Ellen’s sweaters? She copies her pal Kirsten, and uses the Seacolors yarn for a newish arrival at Chez Odacier: Joan Fuller.
Ellen’s pattern writing is terrific. It’s as though she’s sitting next to me on the porch (in my mind, it is summer, always, and on a porch of one sort or another, always), leaning over to remind me what I should do next.
Still, we all know what a pokey knitter I am. Every day, I stitch another few rows before I go to bed, and I confess: it’s hard to sleep when I’ve just had those plump cables in my hand. Even if I don’t finish the sweater to wear this long, long winter, I’ll be ready for a Maine evening in September!
Gale taught me something: match a good, honest yarn by someone you really like with a terrific pattern from a friend you admire, and you’re bound to be happy. And happiness of this sort is exactly what ethical elegance means to me!
How about you? What’s your favorite yarn-pattern match up?
