This pattern is from Haiku Knits by Tanya Alpert and is about the only pattern in this book that I really like! It's an unusual construction, knit in one piece starting from the bottom and then knit over the top of the shoulders, casting off/casting on for the neckline before knitting the back from the top down. The sleeves are picked up from the arm openings and knit down. The only sewing involved is the side seams. I altered the pattern slightly to make the neckline roll better and gave it longer sleeves. The yarn is Sublime Chunky Tweed.
I didn't quite finish it for Christmas but it's brightening up January now.
Last weekend we went on a couple of day-trips to try to cure my January blues. On Saturday we went down to London to visit the Paul Klee exhibition at Tate Modern. I've always loved Klee's work - I think his use of colour and pattern is very appealing to anyone interested in textiles. I've seen many of his works in reproduction and have collected dozens of postcards of his images but I've never seen them in real-life. I was amazed at how small they are; you have to look at them really closely and it felt like peering into a magical world. There's a sense that Klee is using a very personal vocabulary and I'm not sure that I could make any attempt to try to interpret their meaning but they are beautiful nonetheless. My favourites were his fishy paintings including 'Fishes in the Sea'.
Later that day we went to Liberty and I bought this fabric to make a new spring shell-top.
Then on Sunday we visited the Sea Life Centre in Birmingham. The star of the show was this friendly filefish - it was really interested in us and kept following us around. It took many, many attempts to photograph him - he swims so fast - so I'm very pleased that I finally managed to get a decent shot.
