So there’s really not that many good crochet sweater patterns. And I was really grooving on making sweaters. I taught my college roommate to crochet. (I don’t think she appreciated making a 6-foot-long chain stitch.) She picked it up annoyingly quickly, and then went on to teach herself how to knit. And then she taught me how to knit.

Seeing as how I live in Texas, I mostly knit with cotton yarn. I learned on cotton, so the relative inelasticity of it has never been a problem for me. I mostly knit sweaters, from tank tops to the full wool pullover. I’m not generally interested in socks, but I have made a couple pairs of kilt hose. But kilt hose are more than socks; they’re meant to be seen and admired! I have also done some felting, and the last few pieces have even been on purpose. (Sigh.) I had a big stash of this cotton/linen/wool blend that really should not have felted, and it took me several projects to just give up and use it for deliberately felted projects.

I primarily knit for myself. When people ask me to knit them a sweater, I grit my teeth and offer to teach them to knit. I do make stuff for other people, but not on request. I tend to knit textures and avoid color work. Maybe I’m still scarred from that argyle vest. I don’t like variegated yarn, because it inevitably turns into a pattern of some kind, and then gets all funky when you decrease for the sleeves. But I love tweedy yarns where you’ve got the same color combination from end to end. My current project is a sweater with blue-and-white flecked cotton yarn. You can see the purl side here in the background. In fact, all the backgrounds in my etsy store are things I’ve knitted, crocheted or woven.