Lime green sweater
Aaron and I have been massively hooked on Top Gear as of late, and watching as many episodes as Netflix has available on demand. In the episode with the race between a Bugatti Veyron and a Eurofighter Typhoon, there is an audience shot where a gal in a *gorgeous* lime green sweater is standing directly behind the host. I really want one of these sweaters, and it doesn’t look impossible to make.
[oddball geekiness]
Since all of the clips I reviewed on YouTube left this audience portion out, I queued it up on our Xbox and took a picture of my TV screen with my point and shoot camera. Not the most technically advanced way to do it, but I’m not sure if the image would have been much better for my purposes if I had done a regular screen shot *if* I could have found the video.
[/oddball geekiness]
Yarn
At first I thought it was a shrug, but at second glace it is looking like a shrug-style short sweater. The long cuffs are pretty obviously knitted, as is the collar and edging. I am pretty sure that the collar and edging are folded over for double thickness. The cuffs might be, too. It’s the sweater part itself that has me a bit puzzled. It sort of looks crocheted, but it might be knitted. Perhaps with really large needles? My knitting skills are infinitely better than my crochet skills, so it would be better for me if I can figure out a way to knit this. I dug through my knit stitch pattern books, and didn’t see anything that even remotely resembled this look. I used to have a sweater sort of like this, and it was definitely crocheted. This might be the right time to hone my crochet skills.
I’ve thought about subbing in some other lacy patterns, possibly the skull lace pattern I used for my kitchen curtains, but I really like the “hole-y” look of this sweater. I know how to knit simple lace, but I’ve never tried to make lace with holes this large.
Once I figure out the motif to use, I still need to make some decisions on construction. The last shrug I knitted was done wrist to wrist, sewed the sleeves together, and then cast on edging for the collar. This looks more complicated than that.
Someone donated a decent sized stash of beautiful lime green yarn to SCRAP this week, which I am taking as a sign from the deities that I need to at least *try* to re-create this sweater. I started with some gauge swatches last night, but I am going to do some more hunting for patterns I can modify so I don’t I overwork the limited amount of yarn. This might warrant a trip to the library, which would probably give more direction than the internet. There are some really terrific knitting sites out there (I *heart* Knitty) but sometimes I just really need to flip through some books for ideas.