Ireland and Mildred Pierce

I haven’t posted in awhile because I haven’t had anything fun and finished to show off. I did indeed finish the top I wrote about in my last post, however the days I wore it were so ungodly hot and sweaty there was no chance of getting a decent photograph of it modeled.

The tides have turned, however, and Fall is in the air. I recently finished a sweater that I started in the heat of August and polished off as September started cooling down. Just in time, too. Because next week, we leave for a vacation we’ve been planning since the Spring, to Ireland.

I love this sweater. It’s a pattern that a woman designed based on her friend’s vintage sweater. If you’re on Ravelry, the pattern is called Caitlin’s Cardi. I call it my Mildred Pierce cardigan because of the 40s style sleeve caps that remind me of Joan Crawford. In fact, I haven’t yet decided how comfortable I actually feel wearing such prominent sleeves, but I’ll give it a try. (And yes, the astute cat lover will note the painfully ugly cat post in the background.)

The pattern also reminds me quite a bit of a pattern in a 1950 knitting book by Bear Brand Fashions, volume 341. It’s called Westport.

See the resemblance? Actually my version looks quite a bit like this one, as I modified the pattern to give it full-length sleeves and I did the body in stockinette instead of the slipped stitch pattern it called for. I swear, I have the inability to knit a pattern exactly as written.

I love vintage knitting patterns but haven’t actually knit very many of them. There are a lot of modern touches that I love in new knitting patterns (working in the round when possible, charted patterns, concise language). Let’s face it, a lot of vintage knitting patterns are really tedious. Plus there’s an almost endless number of new patterns that have a vintage appeal to keep my fingers busy. So I admit, I do a lot more oogling of vintage knitting patterns than actually knitting of them. (Though okay, I do a fair share of knitting of them too… I guess that happens when you’re an obsessive knitter and something you don’t knit as often as something else you do knit still happens pretty frequently when you knit all the freaking time.)

Anyway, my emerald green sweater will accompany me to the Emerald Isle. I can’t wait!