Hello Internet Friends!
It’s been a hot minute since my last post in October, I hadn’t meant to take a ‘blog break’ but an uptick in migraines and a pinched nerve in my shoulder/neck forced me to slow down and take some time away from my hobbies including blogging. But today I’m back with a fun ‘spring’ sweater that I finally finished in time to wear this fall 😅 This is my version of the Susurrus by Joji Locatelli from Pom Pom Quarterly Issue 32 Spring 2020. This is my second of three patterns from this edition of the magazine, the first being my Aubade sweater and the third being a Solasta pullover that’s still in progress (it’ll probably be ready for spring 2021 at this point 😂) . My love of the patterns in this edition of Pom Pom probably has to do with the theme of this edition, Air, which lead many of the designs to incorporate mohair or mohair equivalents into their designs. Given that I fell in love with all things mohair last fall you can probably see why I would have been instantly drawn to all the patterns in this edition! If you want to see more of my mohair knit creations hit up the mohair tag at the end of this post!
I’ve always loved Joji’s patterns, and I’ve knit quite a few over the years (not all of them blogged or tagged on Raverly unfortunately) What I think I like most is her approach to incorporating design elements so that they enhance and complement each other. With Susurrus I loved how the lace motif is blended into the stripes and the ‘airy’ holes of the lace work complement the ‘airy’ nature of the contrast stripe which is knit in lace mohair and is naturally ‘airy’. I also like the play of the knitted fabric between the more substantial fingering weight lace stripes and the delicate mohair stripes, at first i thought that the weight of the fingering weight lace work would kind of pull at the mohair stripes and make them uneven but they really do balance each other out, again perhaps due to the way the lacework creates a different tension in the knit fabric.
As I mentioned, I picked out this pattern and wanted to knit it for the spring but the pattern took a bit longer than I anticipated and it wasn’t until early summer that it was finished. The spring season influenced my choice of colours for this project and for some reason the idea of pink cherry blossoms near dark green pine trees was the vision I had in mind for the colour palette (no idea how I came up with that one as we were in lockdown in the spring…maybe my mind was making up various spring settings since we weren’t allowed to go out!). I opted for two yarns from earl grey fibers (love this indie yarn shop!) both in the Rooibos Singles base, the green being ‘Drab’ and the pink being ‘Margot’. For the mohair i decided on Garnstudio DROPS Kid-Silk in the Dark Green colourway. Details on the yarn totals and needle sizes can be found here in my ravlery project.
You’ll notice that I’ve listed 3 fingering weight yarns but also mentioned that the green stripes are knit just with mohiar, this is because for the ribbing on the neckline, hemline and cuffs you actually hold the mohair with matching fingering weight yarn to give more structure and substance to those areas which I really like. I’ve also noticed this feature as I’ve been knitting my Solasta pull over so I wonder if this is a commonly done thing for projects that are knit just with mohiar to use a secondary yarn for hems and cuffs or if it’s something that both designers decided to do independently.
I really love how this project turned out and how lightweight yet snuggly the final sweater is! These photos were taken back in October right when the weather started to turn crisp and cold. Now that’s a lot chiller I find myself reaching to wear it around my WFH office/to the lab when I do go and pair it with an additional light cardigan if I know i’ll be outside for an extended period of time. For the most part I’ve worn a thin tank top underneath this sweater, given the semi translucent nature of the mohair and the holes in the lace you’ll probably want to do the same or at the very least strive not to wear it with your most colourful bra lol! Given that I ended up with a lot of the ‘Drab’ fingering weight yarn left over (since I really only needed a small portion of the skein for the hems and cuffs) I think I may knit up a pair of matching fingerless gloves to wear along side the sweater :) Hope you enjoyed this post and stick around for a few more cosy knits/sewing projects I have lined up for the last bit of the year!