Ocean

My vision was to finish this top in Oregon and model it on the beach and make a video with those pictures set to the song I named it after. Alas...I stood at the sort of yucky, artificially blue pond near our house amidst the gnats and only got two decent photos. Just imagine how great the vision was as you read.

Ocean

Pattern: Hélène by Veronik Avery
Yarn: Knit Picks Lindy Chain in Sagebrush
Needles: US 4
Project Page

This is one of those rare instances where I am sort of glad patterns age in my queue much longer than I anticipate. This pattern was released in 2011, when there was one color of Quince & Co. Sparrow, which also happened to be one of the very few linen yarns on the market. Now, in 2015, I had the choice of many Sparrow colors and also this much cheaper, much more colorful, Lindy Chain, among other various linens and linen blends. Naturally, I had to go with a minty green. It's sort of been my jam since last fall, though I don't know if that's shown in my knitting or not....

The pattern is a piece of cake and (I know there are sleeves but) NO (knit separately, then attached) SLEEVES. No sleeves might by my jam for a while too, she said after already starting one or two sweaters sleeves first, ignoring the pile of sweaters without sleeves >.>. In fact, this pattern is so great that even after swatching and half-checking my gauge, I knit the whole thing at a gauge that was entirely too small (row-wise, the only gauge that matters and the only part of my gauge I didn't check) and it still fits me perfectly. Magic? I think so.

I really want to recommend the yarn to you. I do. I mean, I knit a top out of it and it's great. It hasn't fallen apart, didn't spontaneously combust, or anything. But, it's a chain construction and it snags sometimes, even with dull needles. The snags are pretty easy to fix with a bit of tugging, but it's obnoxious. It also didn't soften like I expected. I might toss it into the washing machine, but I don't expect that to help much. It's an alright yarn. Great for the price, really. I can't give it 5 stars, though.

Have you knit anything with linen? If so what? Which yarn(s) have you used that you would recommend? I'll probably give Sparrow a go. People talk highly of it. What do you think?

Ah! Almost forgot the music link. Named for one of my all-time favorite songs. It's by a country duo no one has ever heard of that I still think is absolutely genius. It's one of Spike's favorite songs too. :)