Four things on the needles (and hook) this time, and for once two of them are actually finished. There’s belated closure on the machine-knit wool-linen sweater I put off seaming all summer, a new earflap hat cast on partway through a work trip to Stockholm, a doily started from a vintage pattern book that’s sat unopened on my shelf for years, and slow, steady progress on the Victorian stockings.
The hat was the easy win of the four. The sweater, the doily, and the stockings all had their own way of humbling me.
FO: Summer Diamond Sweater
This one’s been a long time coming. I cast it on back in June: a sweater in black lamb’s wool and dark violet linen, with a simple tuck stitch worked to throw up a diamond pattern on the purl side. I made this on my vintage push-button Brother machine from the 1960s, and the front, back and both sleeves all flew off the machine within a couple of weeks. A few days later, I grabbed my favourite finishing needle, which happens to be blackened steel, and then got to work with seaming. The black yarn, black needle, and tiny gauge were making mattress stitch a miserable process.
