Emma showed me her Vera sweater months ago and I may have been pestering her to get on with finishing the pattern and starting the test knits. She launched the test knitting last night and I signed up to make the 42″ chest which will give me no ease at the bust. I may also, with permission as it’s a test knit, be adding a bit of hip shaping to accommodate my curves so the lower body will be a larger size. I’d tell you which size, but being a lady, it would be impolite to mention it 🙂
Emma made her sweater using West Yorkshire Spinners sock yarn in a pale grey and with a patterned colourway for the sleeves, I think it works really well to add interest and you could use up a bag of sock yarn leftovers for the sleeves.
Yarn choices for the Vera Sweater
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I do have a vast stash of yarn, but we won’t talk about that right now … So, after a bit of stash diving, okay a lot of stash diving, I decided to use Lanas Stop Bambini in Antique Rose as my main colour.
I still need to choose a contrast colour for the sleeves and that may be either Araucania Ranco sock yarn or some Drops Fabel or Delight yarn. The Araucania may be put to one side as it’s handwish and the Lanas Stop is machine washable. I am not great at hand washing items, they lay in the basket forever waiting. Do you hand wash your knits?
Would you like to test knit the Vera Sweater?
I’m including a link to the Ravelry thread where Emma is running the test knit, you can sign up there if you’re interested.
4ply wool fingering weight, sock yarns
4ply wool fingering weight and sock yarns
In the UK we call fingering weight yarn 4ply, as typically it was a finer yarn spun from 4 plies of yarn, but many 4ply yarns are now spun from only one or two plies.
4ply yarn is great for socks, shawls, gloves and other accessories such as shawls, wraps and scarves. It is lightweight but depending on the wool content can also be lovely and warm.
It is wonderful for Fair Isle and colour work projects using 100% wool to give a lighter garment despite the almost double thickness of the resulting patterned fabric.
It produces beautiful lacy knits and often blocks well to show the resulting lacework pattern.
It can be stranded double to knit a heavier garment or to achieve ombre type effects in the garment or fabric.
Superwash sock and fingering weight yarns are fantastic for baby clothing as busy Mum’s will appreciate a machine washable garment which is both easy care and hard wearing. Sock yarns often contain up to 25% nylon to add strength, think heels and toes that get a lot of wear going in and out of your shoes, to the yarn.