Sugarplum Pullover: November 2005 Archives

I joined the Handknit Holidays KAL. Was there ever a doubt?

I have a couple small projects in mind from the book, but I gave in and bought yarn for the pullover that I fell in love with the first time I saw it.

I wanted to modify the colorway a bit so I went with a yarn I could get locally (it's just too hard to see how colors work next to each other online). I would have loved to have found a nice angora blend to work with, but nothing had the color variety I needed. So I went with Nashua Creative Focus Worsted. The gauge is 5spi versus 5.5 but the color range was right. What it means is I can knit one size smaller and get the right size.

I stayed fairly true to the original colors except I went with black instead of the green/brown shade as the main color.

I'm missing 2 colors as well. A bright red and a strong blue are on order.

I can't end this post without talking about this yarn for a bit. Why have I not read more about this on the blogs? It is *wonderful* yarn. The worsted is the same gauge and yardage as Cascade 220 but with 25% alpaca. It retails at $8/skein so it's very reasonably priced. There's also a chunky and a subtle stripe similar to noro. There are 4 pattern books out now with designs ranging from simple cardis and pullovers to cabled or multicolored sweaters and outerwear. With almost 40 adult-friendly shades in their palette I expect to see this one gaining more attention this season.