My Very First Handspun Sweater

I'd been wanting to make a handspun sweater.  But I was not up for spinning 1000+ yards of the same color yarn.

After staring at and thinking about the 395 yards of Finn Top I'd dyed and spun last weekend, I decided to make a sweater by adding to it the Grey Shetland that I'd spun a while back. Jumping on the stripes bandwagon here since it was the simplest way to combine two yarns for enough yardage for a sweater. I used up every yard of the Finn Top plus 215 yards of the Shetland.

dyed Finn Top

2-ply

Grey Shetland

Super, duper easy and quick knit. It took me much longer to dye and spin than to knit this sweater. At the gauge of 4.5 sts per inch using US #6 needles, this sweater took me 3 days to knit accompanied by one episode of Foyle's war and marathons of Doc Martin.  I was also able to squeeze in a documentary of Yves Sanit Laurent in French with English subtitles thanks to the St sts. It did feel kinda surreal watching the story of this couture fashion icon while knitting a very homemade looking sweater and wearing my homely looking pajamas. I knew so little about fashion world, so it was for sure an interesting story to watch.  I couldn't keep my jaws from dropping when I spotted Matisse paintings on his walls. Although not a huge fan of late Mondrian's work, I definitely found his Mondrian-look dresses amusing. One thing I really admired about YSL's creations was his work provided possibilities of imagination to the viewers.  The romance with clothes in many of his collections was that they make you dream about something beyond the dresses themselves.

As far as my non-fashion sweater, it was knitted top down in raglan style. Began with 5 rows of garter sts in Grey Shetland. The stripes were alternated every 2 rows until underarm, then continued with only the main color until the 2x2 hem border.

It turned out to be a rather cute top, if I may say so myself. Shetland was not a next-to-skin fiber for me, but Finn was much softer.

I finally made a handspun sweater! albeit a small and short one.  I may just dye up a full sweater worth of fiber pretty soon...