more gray

I’ve definitely been developing an obsession with this particular gray yarn (ISPE Padova Serenada). Which is kind of unexpected seeing that I didn’t buy the yarn on my own initiative at all. I had bought a huge quantity of it when I was struggling with making “the male scarf”. The recipient had requested gray and this was the best gray I could find, and since it was fingering weight I bought double the amount with the intention of getting my intended gauge by holding it double. After experimenting with it, though, I was not happy and abandoned the yarn completely, regretting my purchase and hoping that some day, a long time later, I could find some use of it, but not really believing that I would.

Then came along the Little Sister Dress and the recipient again requested gray – I was happy that I could use at least some of my stash and plodded along. I still wasn’t terribly impressed. But once it was finished, the magic of blocking decided to interfere. Something happens to this yarn after you give it a nice warm wash. The stitches seem to bloom a little and hug each other tightly, the fabric becomes smooth, the texture pops out. I know these are things you could say about blocking most yarns, but something very tactile happens here, I can’t really explain it without letting you touch it. In the end, it’s it’s what made me fall in love with it after all that time. (I guess all this speaks, as so many other things do, of the importance of washing and blocking swatches – something I’m afraid I still fail to do.)

(The white spots are not colour variations – but remnants of weighing the sweater in our kitchen scales… It’ll have a proper wash soon.)

This particular pattern called for a fingering weight yarn to be held double, something I had never seen so expressly requested in a pattern before, but since I was so eager to use this yarn again, it was the perfect match. And of course, held double the knitting flew by. It came out looking just as I thought it would and I am so pleased that my beloved gray yarn has been turned into another charming toddler item. As you can tell, I haven’t been too keen to get on with the finishing, but when I do, I’ll get better photos and be sure to tell you more about the pattern as well.