Darned alpaca

I may have mentioned that my favorite sweater is getting old (only once every few weeks, I know....). Two weeks ago, the unthinkable (and entirely inevitable) happened; a hole developed in the cuff.

Now, I should probably just accept that the sweater is old, that it's not even that flattering, and that it's probably only going to get worse. But I like this sweater. There is no other in my collection to replace it yet, and it doesn't look all that ratty, despite being quite literally threadbare in a few places.

So, we embarked on a quest. We went to the yarn shop in search of a color match close enough to darn the cuffs. We got something that I thought might be close enough. It wasn't.

In digging through the stash, I discovered that the light grey alpaca from Oblivion actually matched pretty well. So, I darned the cuffs with that.

That was two weeks ago. Alpaca is slippery yarn - more slippery than I gave it credit for. Every time I've worn the sweater, an inch or so of the darning yarn has worked its way back out of the fabric. Alpaca is also fuzzy. It's a little odd to have a fuzzy spot on the cuff of a not-fuzzy sweater. Clearly, I needed to rethink this solution.

Thursday we went to another yarn store and began the hunt again. I found one yarn that was far too thick, but at least the right color. The sweater is knit in a DK weight, and the yarn we found is a bulky. If it were a plied yarn, I'd have just split the plies and used those, but it's a single. I decided to try anyway.

So, this morning, I un-darned the sweater, removing all of the alpaca.



This left a hole, and some very threadbare yarn. (Can you see my finger through the sweater?)




Then, I re-darned with the wool (Donegal tweed, by the way...I love it. If it weren't a single and rather expensive, I would be thinking of making a sweater in it).

Not bad for a twice-darned sweater, huh?




Twice-knitting seems to be all the rage around here lately. I decided a while ago that I didn't like the way the shoulder shaping came out on Oblivion. In fact, I knew I didn't like it within moments of putting on the sweater for the first time, but I wanted to wear it a few times and see if I really minded. Well, I did. I had done a 50% decrease a few rows before the neck bindoff, and it was just too much; the fabric puckered all around it, and pulled the sweater up around my shoulders instead of letting it sit where it belonged. There were only 2 or 3 inches to pull out (not all the way to the colorwork), and I just didn't like the way it fit.

So, last week I pulled it out, and this week I've been reworking that section with a more gradual decrease and a little extra length to help the colorwork sit in place. We all say that the best part of knitting is that you can always do it over; why is it that we go so far to avoid do-overs? It only took a night or two to re-knit, and I'm much happier with the sweater now. I finished weaving in its ends this morning, and it's currently taking a bath, getting ready for blocking.

I think I've had enough darned alpaca for now!