A Tale of 3 Sweaters

It’s a pattern of behavior which knows no logic or expediency: I am never so productive with knitting as when there is something else that needs to be done. The more urgent the other task is, the faster I knit.

No surprise then, that this year’s HMRC double whammy deadlines of Annual tax and Quarterly VAT returns has seen very nearly 3 sweaters off my needles: The Back Yoke, The Bella, and (almost) The Oldies.

The sweaters barely show any resemblance to one another, but like the mother of unalike siblings, I see the common thread of sitting-on-the-sofa-in-denial Sunday afternoons, procrastinating cups of coffee and always that pile of un-filed invoices in my peripheral vision.

It’s a slightly unfair way of yoking them together as each really does have it’s own origin story. It may have been the tax deadlines that got them finished but they started their journeys quite separately.

The Back Yoke appeared whilst I was browsing Noriko Ichikawa’s designs, which in turn was thanks to her Minna No – probably the most popular Sweater Club pattern we’ve ever had: She’s an attention-to-detail designer, who seems to take as much care with construction process as the sweater form.

Aside from the simple joy of uncomplicated knitting, the prize here is a sweater that I’m going to wear and wear. With the exception of that intriguing seam across the back, I knew the knitting wouldn’t be taxing. So I figured it would need a yarn that was happy to chat – even better if it told me stories along the way.

In the event, it showed up not in the shop, but in a love-at-first-sight moment at the Edinburgh Woolly Good Gathering amongst the plant-dyed skeins of Black Isle Yarns. Breac was a deep blackcurrant purple created by overdyeing the black wool of a Jacob Gotland cross-breed with logwood and gallnut. The wool was a little greasy and had a slightly uneven spin that hinted at a slubbiness in the finished fabric, and just the sort of chattiness I knew the knitting would need.

With the summer, came a plan to escape the city, and travel back to Scotland, to Berneray in the outer Hebrides. I packed my knitting away for the long drive and finally took it out to work across the eponymous back yoke on the windy deck of the ferry which crossed the Harris Sound to the port of Lochmaddy in North Uist.

Yarn, knitting and landscape found a rare alignment as I knitted on down the front, and joined the round to work the body. There was just one skein left and a sleeve and half to go when I got home. I wound it into a ball and kept on going. If I knit faster, would it last long enough? For anyone who’s ever wondered a similarly silly thing, it doesn’t work. I ran out of yarn on the final cuff, too soon for the neckline. I washed my purple hands and in a rather unresolved way, put away the unfinished sweater and it’s smell of the summer, pretending it might just finish itself if I looked away for a while.

It wasn’t long before I got distracted by some swatches knit in the new shades of WYS Fable, by a group of itchy-fingered Sweater Clubbers, impatient for the autumn, and busy with a Robinia Knit Along. So I decided to join them on the sidelines, with a less decorated version called the Bella Blouse. If I made mine in black it might just bridge that woolly-smart gap that always seems to elude me. I just needled a contrast shade for the viaduct motif around the neckline. Obviously it should have been cream but I was led astray by a chance encounter with a ball of Anchor Gold crochet yarn which accidentally fell off the shelf next to the black Fable. Could I wear black and gold? Can you knit a lamé 4ply double stranded? How would it feel around my neck? Well it turns out that not only can you knit with gold lamé held double, it is also fine for colourwork and absolutely wearable against the skin. The sparkly golden arches were beautiful against the fluff of the fable, but they were also a lot. What this very-extra neckline needs, I decided, was a break. So I added a steek channel and the sweater became a cardigan. Would the metalic thread tolerate the cut? Well, yes and no. The risk of unravelling seemed unlikely but not impossible and it definitely looked messy on the inside. I found a solution in a wide and silky, black, sparkly grosgrain tape from the ribbons and buttons basement of the Poland Street haberdasher’s, MacCulloch and Wallis. I sewed the tape over the cut edge, added some soft gold buttons to keep the neckline company, looked over my shoulder at the cardigan in the mirror, and yes, the gold was rather blingy and not at all my usual, but what the hell. I loved it! The Fable’s mix of wool and alpaca are somehow balanced in all that warm loft and weighty drape and the mohair encased the whole thing in its own comforting cloud of fuzz. This one was a proper treat, but it’s finishing somehow reminded me of the one I’d left behind.

I pulled out the imcomplete Back Yoke and tried it on. Why hadn’t I done that before? The sleeves both had at least 2 inches more length than they needed. What if I pulled them back and re-did the ribbing?With the newly liberated yarn wound into a little ball, I picked up the stitches around the neck and managed to eek out an inch of neckline from those surplus cuffs with just enough to cast off. One evening and a bolt of single-mindedness and the Back Yoke was finished. No, it didn’t have that turtleneck like the pattern picture, but if anything I loved this thrifty curly-edged stocking stitch one a little bit more.

Two sweaters finished in as many days. I’d cleared the decks. Now it was time to reallly knuckle down and concentrate on the tax return. There’d be no more sweaters and no more knitting until it was done. Except.. Except that there was a short train journey I had to make, and it would be silly not to use the time productively. Afterall, you can’t do your tax return on the train – right? Plus it made sense for the shop. We still didn’t have anything knitted up in the new yarn from Uist Wool. I’d had Kouvive’s Oldies pattern in mind for a while. She used a lighter sportweight, but at a looser gauge that left plenty of room for our slightly plumper Uist DK. And in all other respects – fibre-wise, colour-wise and spin-wise – it seemed made to measure. And as the sweater started with a relatively boring swathe of stocking stitch, I felt sure this was knitting I could absolutely put away until there was a proper time for it. The trouble was, those travelling stitches on the yoke pattern lay ahead like a delicious dessert that I just couldn’t resist.

And that’s how I got here, with very nearly 3 sweaters and thankfully, 2 tax returns finished.

Taxes, procrastination, sweaters. Somehow it all works out in the end.