Paulina

You know how some projects really soak up their context?  Perhaps you made it for someone and thought about them as you knit it.  Or, perhaps you made something on a trip so the memories of your trip are contained in the project.  Sometimes even movies or TV shows you've watched while knitting a project become tangled into the fibers.  That happens to me a lot.

Poor Paulina holds a bunch of sad times in its stitches.  This was the project I started on that bittersweet camping trip that sparked my health issues and highlighted Tchazo's limits.  It was the project I worked on a tiny bit at a time when I was feeling so awful that I could barely function.  I knit on it while catching up with friends and sharing the latest in my health saga with them.  It was pretty much the one and only thing I had on the needles during the bulk of my stressful summer/fall.  And, more comically, it was this yarn that I had taped to my back for a week to see if I was allergic to it.  (I wasn't.)  I guess the positive spin from this point in time is that this project and (hopefully) that phase of my life is now behind me.  On both accounts: It's done.  It was a learning experience.  I wouldn't want to do it again.

I was turned on to this pattern after trying on a sample at Steven Be's store.  It was at Shepherd's Harvest that the right combination of yarn became available: Habu Silk Stainless Steel held with Sun Valley Fibers Single Ply Lace.  The lace merino yarn dampened the impact of the stainless steel, but as you see in the photo above, if you scrunch the fabric up, it will remember.

This garment is knit from the cuff on the arm to the center and then again from the other cuff to the center, knitting the back and front at the same and using a 3 needle bind off to join the pieces.  For some reason, I found this to be more tedious and less enjoyable to knit than a simple top down stockinette stitch garment.  Oh wait!  That is probably because of all of the purling.  A ha!  That is why this felt like it took forever.

It hangs a bit strangely where the 3 needle bind off is in the front and the back center.

I have to fight the urge to tug at it!

I am not sure how much I will wear this, but I don't regret making it.  The steel component was a new thing for me. I still like the sculptural potential with this yarn.  I think the next time I use it, I might not pair it with another yarn so that it can really do its thing unencumbered by the weight of other fiber.

I'm going to go tuck this away now and hope that letting a bit of time pass will cause some of the memories to fall out of those stitches.  Perhaps by the spring, this will be ready to come out again.