The First Pentagon
Sorry, it's just a post about a sweater. But a glorious sweater.
One day, one pentagon finished. I'm not setting that as my goal, but how satisfying, all the same. (Full disclosure: almost finished, I still need to seam up the center to convert it from semicircle to pentagon). What's beautiful about this project: the simplicity of the technique against the intricacy, the texture, the lushness of the cables.
Yesterday, at work, I was wearing this sweater.
A guest admired it and asked where she could find it in the store. When I told her that I'd made it, she did the typical non-crafty thing of first, giving me a backhanded compliment, and then, regretting that she could never make a sweater. "Oh, you could do this," I insisted. "If you can count, you can knit." Still dubious. I then added the piece of information that seems to assuage any potential jealousy: "Would it make you feel any better to know that it took me a very long time to finish this?" Yup, that did the trick.
In my house, it's generally known that it will take me at least a year to weave four napkins. Right now, I have a project, one-third finished, from at least two years ago, on the loom. And yesterday I remembered that a very long time ago, at least a year and a half ago, my older daughter asked if I would weave her napkins when she moved into her own apartment. Perhaps they may arrive in circa 2010?
Here's an idea: if you want to try this sweater, you could buy just one skein of yarn. Try one pentagon. If you can knit, purl, and do a basic decrease of either knitting two stitches together or slipping two stitches knitwise and then knitting those together, you can make this. And those are very doable goals. Big names but very easy operations, I promise.
If you're not sure how to do that, you can buy the yarn at a good knitting shop and they will help you to learn how. And if you decide after one pentagon that you're not in for the whole project, you'll have a nifty knitted shape that you can use as a potholder or a dresser doily (does anyone still use those) or something to display to friends as evidence of your domestic artistry.
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I've been trying to post all day. Blogger ate my password. I finally received my VK and started working on the yarn for Capecho. The Berroco is a bit out of my current budget and no online or in town source had enough of a decent color. I ended up at LittleKnits and have ordered a D.Bliss Merino Aran in a nice woodsy green. I will start pentagoning as soon as it arrives (I used to live in an apartment with a view of the Pentagon). I will probably make my sweater longer either with more pentagons or ribbing as on the sleeves. By the way, LittleKnits has the yarn originally used for Bianca's Jacket at a terrific price.