The Weekender

mildlygranola, , ,

I have a new favorite sweater. It fits like an oversized sweatshirt, but is made of a merino/silk blend, so it is exceptionally soft. It only took me two and a half weeks to knit, which is about how long it takes me to knit a baby sweater.

Last night Ivy and I went to see Mean Girls the musical. It was a great show, and I was able to wear the best sweater ever. I think I’ll be wearing it constantly this winter.

I do have two negative things to say about the yarn, Cascade Yarns Venezia Worsted. The yarn is so soft this sweater will pill like crazy. I knew that going in, but it chose to go forward with it anyway. I may live to regret that decision. My biggest complaint about the yarn is that you can see where I sewed in the ends. I’ve never had that problem before, and ended up trying different techniques throughout the sweater to sew in the ends, but they all show. Because of that I won’t be using the yarn again.

I want to cast on another sweater for myself soon. I’m either going to make a Farmhouse Cardigan or the Throughstone Sweater. Or I might get crazy and pull out my Turkana again and make some progress on it. What do you think I should work on next?

21 thoughts on “The Weekender”

  1. Fantastic sweater! It looks wonderful on you:)
    I understand what you mean able the yarn. Soft is so nice but it pills like mad. I’ve never had woven ends show. I hope you find a solution for the future. I wonder if it’s because of the silk?

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  2. I did mycroft in venezia, and actually gave away the sweater quantity I had still at home because it made me grumble while I was working with it, and I find it weirdly heavy. It does look beautiful, though! Yours is fabulous.

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      1. AJ says:

        Lol I love your Finish it Friday- I told my friend about it and it’s helping her get a sweater done. If it was your Friday project you could also have another of those new projects:)

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  6. Your Weekender is gorgeous, and it really suits you! You look like you were having a good time – was the musical good? I made a sweater a while ago out of Venezia – it definitely pills, but my biggest problem with it was how much it grew with washing! Probably the silk is to blame for all of that, but it still feels lovely 🙂
    Boy, you have some lovely candidates for your next project! Can’t wait to see what you pick 🙂

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    1. Your sweater grew definitely because of the silk content. It is a slippery yarn. The solution when working with yarns that have a high silk or alpaca content is avoid long sections of stockinette stitch. Garter or seed stitch patterns won’t have as much unintended stretching. I also use twisted stitches for this purpose, I.e. knit through the back loop.

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  9. I don’t believe it is the silk that will pill. All merino yarns I have ever knit with seem to pill pretty quickly. Have you tried a highland wool superwash? Not quite as soft as merino, but probably soft enough for a cardigan. Patons and Knitpicks both make one.

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