I think this is pretty much the story of my life. As soon as everything gets super busy, my immediate reaction is to back up real quick as if I walked in on a grizzly bear. Is anyone else like that? During my first semester of school in 2016, I managed to finish way more knitting projects than I had planned because stress caused me to cast on, like, all the things. And while I knit, I kept telling myself "Oh, Suzen! You shouldn't be knitting!" but I kept knitting anyway. Sigh.
The same can be said for the amount of times I redo the blog and website. For those that have followed me over the years, you're probably used to it by now. What I mean is how fickle I can be with my Internet life, how impulsively I change things around. I can kind of equate it to starting a new bullet journal or diary, how satisfying it is to put that first mark on a new page and how exciting it is to look at that blank book and daydream about all the things that will fill it. This website is all of that. Well, in addition to the guilt I feel about procrastinating my other work in favour for new creative pursuits.
Really, I should just quit apologizing for it. When faced with large and overwhelming projects, sometimes it is just good to step back and take something smaller on to give yourself that sense of accomplishment back. A little creative pat on the back. A confidence boost.
And that is what this new website is all about. Oh, and the new project I'm about to share. Let's jump right to it!
The Mount Pleasant Top
designed by Megan Nodecker of Pip & Pin
So, I've cast on for another Mount Pleasant Top, a cropped beauty designed by Megan Nodecker, a knitwear designer and podcaster living in British Columbia. I worked up a version of this last summer using stashed yarns and it quickly became my favourite knit because it is so easy to wear. The original version I knit used superwash merino singles, striping them to make up for the fact that I didn't have enough yarn to knit anything in a solid colour. The result was unexpectedly delightful, even if it was a pain in the ass to stripe every few rows.
The versatility of this top is great and while I wouldn't necessarily consider a wool top to be a summer wardrobe staple, my Mount Pleasant is light and airy when worn on its own, while acting as a squishy warm layer over dresses in the spring and fall. Yes. This top is a winner!
Which is why I have decided to cast on another. This one, however, will be worked up in just two colours rather than the three. Let's talk about the yarn:
The main body of the top is being worked up in Madeline Tosh's Tosh Sock, in the colourway Electric Rainbow. This is 100% hand dyed merino wool, fingering weight and oh-so-squishy. These skeins were part of a new order of Madeline Tosh that came into my local yarn shop and I just couldn't resist because it looks almost holographic. I chose two of the most vibrant skeins and I can't get over the depth of shade and layering of colours in these skeins. Unlike some hand dyed yarns I've picked up over the years, this one definitely shows how much work was put into it. There is so much variety in colour placement that there is no real chance of pooling, especially at the gauge I am knitting, and the speckling of black dye on top of it all just adds that pop that keeps the yarn from appearing muddy.
As I mentioned previously, I only purchased two skeins of this yarn and I knew that it wouldn't necessarily be enough to knit the entire Mount Pleasant top so I am supplementing it with a skein I purchased from Tayler of Fiber for the People back when her shop first launched. The colourway is Hypercolor Shirt and it is on sockweight yarn base that she no longer carries but is very similar in texture to the Madeline Tosh I am using, meaning that it is a plump plied yarn that has beautiful stitch definition. This colourway compliments the Madeline Tosh beautifully. I've used it for the scalloped lace edge of the top and have plans to use the rest for the ribbing around the neckline and sleeves. Oh! It's just so pretty!
The top itself is coming along nicely. At this point I have just started knitting the main part of the body and finished the second set of increases. I still have quite a ways to go yet before I separate for the sleeves. Normally I am not one to enjoy knitting bottom-up sweaters because I hate having to knit the sleeves separately to join them with the yoke. I'd much rather pick up stitches and knit the sleeves from the garment itself. Luckily, Mount Pleasant only requires a minimum amount of rib around the armholes and given the boxy nature of the garment, the capped sleeves just kind of knit themselves. It's great!
Anyway, here is my progress thus far:
And with that I best be leaving you to get back to the necessary work I had ahead of me. Bah. Oh, how I wish I was knitting instead!